NEWS ANALYSIS
By Tony Eluemunor
“What’s going on?” The late African-American soul-brother,
Marvin Gaye, asked that question in a 1971
song that became a monster hit on Tamla Motown label and
sold over two million copies, becoming
Gaye’s second-most successful Motown song.
 |
| Chief James Ibori |
While that song was born of incredulity and amazement at
government brutality (against American
university students who were protesting against Vietnam
War); astonishment at the deep
misinformation on the Ibori London case, launched this
article. The trial entered a most critical stage on
Wednesday December 21, 2016, when the former Delta State
Governor won the most significant victory
to date, in that long lingering and totally knotty,
intricate, and so confusing, court trial.
Instead of journalists rising up to the occasion and meet
the responsibilities news organizations owe
their hapless leaders, a large number of them failed woefully
in that task as they allowed politics and
other ignoble considerations to trump the need to inform the
public, and place issues in their real
perspective.
For instance, what on earth could have made a newspaper as
highly regarded as the PUNCH not to
notice the incongruities in its report of that court session
on Thursday, December 22, entitled : “Ibori
Freed, FG begins ex-Delta Governor’s extradition process”,
to offer its readers a trailer load of
contradictions? On line 10, the highly respected paper
wrote: “the ex-Governor pleaded guilty to
stealing $250 million from the Delta State treasury”. But on
line 23, it wrote “UK Home Secretary Amber
Rod did not intend to deport Ibori to Nigeria until he
handed over £18 million, proceeds of crime he
alleged the ex-Governor held”. So how much was Ibori alleged
to have stolen?
If Ibori was said by the papers to have stolen $250m, or
that he had even pleaded guilty to stealing that
amount, then why on earth did the Home Secretary talk about
“ALLEDGED” £18m? When was the
amount reversed down? By who? Why? And what does the word
“alleged” mean?
Yet, if as the papers reported that the British Home Office
had wanted to confine Ibori in indefinite
detention until the confiscation hearing had been fully
heard, it means confiscation hearing had not
been concluded. And that, too, means that no amount of money
has been ordered by any court for Ibori
to forfeit.
Do journalists know that it is a fact of life that one
confiscation hearing ended September 2013 (and that
is no misprint) and no single evidence was proffered in
court to prove that Ibori stole a Kobo from Delta
State government coffers? Then, after both parties –
Prosecution and Defense – had made their final
submissions, and no evidence of stealing emerged, Judge
Anthony Pitts, ordered a retrial, instead of
delivering a judgment, to enable Police search for new
evidence. That was in 2013 for goodness sake
and since then; the new confiscation hearing has yet to even
begin.
Yet, other issues have been thrown up by that PUNCH report,
which said that EFCC sources confirmed to
the paper that Nigeria had already commenced repatriation
proceedings against Ibori. And I ask, if
Nigeria is anxious of repatriating stolen funds, then why
would she want Ibori deported when the
confiscation hearing against him has not even started? Yet,
the Justice Minister, a Senior Advocate of
Nigeria, should know what confiscation hearing entails, and
that without it, no money would be
repatriated.
Or do some people fear that Ibori will win that appeal and
so they want him taken out of Britain, so as to
frustrate his efforts in fighting the appeal and have his
conviction quashed? I don’t believe in such
conspiracy theories under Buhari’s presidency. So, I cast my
votes thus: Britain was misled into believing
that Ibori had no other sources of income and had trumpeted
that information from the roof tops.
What exactly is going on? The answer is that suddenly, the
hunters have become the hunted as the
British Police investigators and the Prosecution officials
that were arrayed against Ibori have been so
deeply indicted that they have all been dropped from the
case. Also, a lawyer, Mr. Stephen Kimlish said
openly on London-based Ben TV interview :“Well, the fact is
that most times, people plead guilty for the
wrong reasons. What I can say is that when there is (Police)
corruption on this huge scale and in the
background of the case, I’m involved in this case, the
British law says that even if you pleaded guilty or
not, your guilty plea can be quashed because the British
public can’t discountenance such major
corruption in a common investigation, therefore, whether you
plead guilty or you plead not guilty, your
conviction can be quashed. So in this case that is what we
are currently aiming for. As for Bhadresh
Gohil, I am going for quashing”!
Did Ibori have other sources of income while he was
Governor? Page 14 of the 44-page paper filed by
the London Metropolitan Police, against Ibori in court, item
81, on MER Engineering states: “MER built
houseboats, which were rented out to oil workers in the
Delta. It was Ibori who was able to influence
the contracts with Chevron and Shell and the NNPC” Item 83:
“It was MER money that paid for the Ibori
property in Hampstead, Westover Hill: Count 5. Item 84, “It
was MER money that paid for the house
Ibori bought in Houston Texas. Item 85, “it was MER money
that paid for the deposit for the $20 million
Challenger Jet airplane that Mr. Ibori was in the process of
buying when his monies were restrained by
the UK courts”.
Weeks before Ibori was sentenced, EFCC arrested and
questioned one Dr. Babalakin on the charge that
he helped Ibori launder money, using the account of
Babalakin’s company. EFCC said Ibori never tried to
buy a Challenger jet but was only helped to launder money by
pretending he was buying a jet. I replied
that the EFCC was lying because it had known for years that
Ibori actually invested some money in a
registered air-charter
company for a jet that would be used commercially, but the world has been
deceived that Ibori had bought, or was in the process of
buying, a private jet. Now, which private jet was
London MET Police talking about? Or did the EFCC not arrest
Babalakin on the allegation that he helped
Ibori launder money in the guise of buying a private jet?
And didn’t the same London Met Police state in court that Ibori had invested
only $4million on that aircraft – money from MER Engineering?
Adding the $4 million for the jet to the $6 million for the
properties, sums that came from MER
Engineering, brings the entire sum to $10 million. If you
make allowance for police exaggeration of
property costs, you would have a sum that is below $8
million. It is a huge amount but it is nowhere
near 50 or 250 million Pounds that were bandied about. And
the monies came from MER Engineering
accounts. Also, I don’t want to go into the amount of the
travel and overnight allowances that Ibori was
paid during his eight-year tenure as Governor. In fact I
once reminded a presidential spokesman that he
collected allowances for trips with the late President
Yar’Adua and especially for that 2010 South African
World Cup jamboree which he, among a “lean” retinue of 500
officials costing Nigeria N314, 473,438.
22, attended. Was the allowance for that trip part of his
annual salary?
Sometimes I am tempted to disbelieve even my own eyes. On
item 175 of the same court document:
“By the time he was into his second term of office as
Governor of Delta State, James Ibori had defrauded
Delta State of such large sums of money that he was planning
to buy himself a private jet aeroplane
costing $20 million.” Is this not the same plane for which
Mr. Babalakin was arrested, and EFCC said he
was laundering money for Ibori in the guise of buying a
plane? Item 183: “MER had an account at
Barclays bank in Knightsbridge. The Money went from the oil
companies straight out of Nigeria and into
MER account in Barclays”. And that too is a crime? Item 29:
“Mr. Ibori used money defrauded from the
people of Nigeria to buy a property in Houston in Texas …
“only to see in Item 84, “It was MER money
that paid for the house Ibori bought in Houston Texas’.
Ibori’s many sins for which he was convicted
included this terribly grave crime: Item 34: “In addition to
his millionaire life style, Ibori called himself
“HIS EXCELLENCY”, a title not recognized by the
constitution”. Also, Nuhu Ribadu accused the oil majors
of helping Ibori launder money over the same MER Engineering
contracts, claiming that MER
Engineering had no contracts at all with those oil
companies. And such nonsense even found its way into
the Financial Times of London in September 2007 and the
Saharareporters published a story; “How Ibori
Bought A Private Jet”. Really, truth has been terribly
eclipsed in the Ibori media-lynching bid. And like
Marvin Gaye, I could scream: “What is going on”?
·
Tony Eluemunor is Chief James Ibori’s Media
Assistant.
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