By Tony Eluemunor
The fantastically rumour – besotted Chris Akor, in “The face
of a fantastically corrupt country” (Business Day of Wednesday February 15,
2017) embraced rumour and nothing but his beloved rumour.
 |
| Chief James Onanefe Ibori |
To worsen matters, he also lied when he wrote: ….“was
demonstrated last week at the N350 million church thanksgiving and RECEPTION
packaged, according to Sahara reporters, by the Delta state government to
welcome him home. Not only was the entire Delta state government machinery
diverted to Oghara, all politicians of note, the who-is-who in the state, plus
a massive and tumultuous crowd were on hand to rejoice with and welcome him
home”. Which reception was he referring
to? And which “government machinery was diverted to Oghara?” No reception held
anywhere for Ibori after the church service!
Next paragraph: In
the service of another rumour, Akor wrote: “In April 2010, when the Economic
and Financial Crimes Commission wanted to arrest (Ibori) he escaped to his
hometown in Oghara, where youths barricaded the community and successfully
prevented the EFCC from having access to the community to arrest the embattled
former governor”. That is a lie. The
EFCC never attempted to arrest Ibori in Oghara and were turned back. Never!
In the very next sentence, he lied again; “The same Urhobo
people organised his escape (he confessed to being ferried out of the country
through a river by Oghara youths) to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates”. Sincerely,
Ibori has never made such a confession. Also, he could not have gone through a
river to Dubai because no river runs from the Niger Delta to Dubai! Chris Akor
obviously needs an Atlas map!
Next paragraph; next rumour, next lie! “Alamieyesiegha
jumped or was allowed to jump bail and escaped to Nigeria dressed as a woman”.
Is Chris Akor’s mind so simplistic that he actually believes that in 2005, DSP
Alamieyesiegha could have passed through a British Airport dressed as a woman
or mermaid or goat or Chris Akor and no CCTV camera captured that image? And why
has it remained impossible till date to identify the airline that brought him
to Lagos and Port Harcourt? I gave up
on Chris Akor after encountering so many rumours and outright lies. Here’s my
advice to Chis Akor : “please be serious”!
Our columnists could learn from an observant and inquisitive
Josef Omorotionmwan (Vanguard of Thursday Feb. 16, 2017). He wrote: “Delta is
one of the most enlightened States throughout the Federation. Yet, (the people)
love Ibori most passionately – to the extent that many would be willing to go
to prison in his stead; and many would be willing to die so that Ibori could
live. When Ibori returned to Nigeria recently … he got the type of reception
that no Nigerian Head of State has ever received. And this came in spite of the
fact that many had written and spoken of the folly in coming out to welcome him.
If some former Governors … had to quietly return home in total infamy after
service; and you have Ibori’s return being celebrated in grand style, then,
Ibori must have something going for him. He, therefore, becomes a special
research subject. That’s our major point
of interest”.
Josef Omorotionmwan’s has originality of thought. He has
depth. He does not flow with the flotsam and jetsam in the sea of rumours. But he forgot to EMPHASIZE that the
admiration for Ibori cuts across Delta State’s ethnic divide as the Urhobo,
Anioma, the Isoko, the Ijaw and the Itsekiri peoples celebrated his return with
equal vigour. So where is the “primordial” and “tribal” nonsense some columnists
embraced in this case as they misapplied Prof Peter Ekeh’s postulations to
insult the Delta people? Akor actually
called the remarkable Achebe just a “story teller” in that article; so he even dismissed Achebe too!
Adherents to their school of politics had spent years
demonizing Ibori but he returned obviously more popular than his political traducers
and their slavish newspaper cheerleaders expected. Please, note that I used the
term slavish as Jimmy Cliff used it in his “Poor Slave” reggae music track: “A slave
is still a slave/If he can't think independently” (Fundamental Reggae album:
1973).
Also, the visitors who came to felicitate with Ibori were
not all politicians. Gen. David Ejoor (rtd) Mid-West Region’s Military Governor
in 1966 when Ibori was eight years old and who was Gen. Yakubu Gowon’s Chief of
Staff, Supreme Headquarters when Ibori was a teenager, was helped to walk from
and back to his car when he visited Ibori. The remarkable inventor, Brig-Gen
Otu Oviemo Ovadje (rtd) a highly endorsed Nigerian medical doctor who invented
the Emergency Auto Transfusion System (EAT-SET) – an affordable, simpler and
effective blood auto-transfusion system, also visited him. They wouldn’t have
come for handouts either!
The genuine love for Ibori in Delta, the South-South and
even across the land has endured despite all the slings and arrows Nigerian
politicians, British DfID agency and self-serving but ill-informed and out rightly dubious columnists have sent
against Ibori – columnists who have refused to acknowledge that Ibori had other
sources of income while he was governor (and EFCC knew this all the while as the
story in the Financial Times of London of November 16, 2007, “Probe into
Chevron and Shell payments” by Michael Peel and Dino Mahtani, showed). It
stated that “Anti-corruption investigators are probing payments by
ChevronTexaco and Royal Dutch Shell to a company owned by Ibori”; to find reasons to freeze the account and
demonise Ibori. Another item in the charges showed Ibori bought the UK
properties with money legitimately earned, e.g., through MER Engineering (an
oil service company); that the first
confiscation hearing ended in 2013 and no millions of dollars were found
anywhere to be seized, and so another confiscation trial was decreed, that till
today, no evidence that Ibori stole Delta State’s money exists anywhere.
Above all, the Ibori trial in Nigeria is different from the
London trial; while it was beyond every reasonable doubt in Nigeria, it was
just on inference alone in Britain, so nothing needed to be proved at all – not
even the predicate case of establishing a crime before talking of money
laundering. If I’m proved wrong on any
point of fact, I pledge to publicly apologise.
·
Mr. Eluemunor is Chief James Ibori’s media
aide.
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