Long buried truths on the political persecution, instead of prosecution, brutally directed against Chief James Onanefe Ibori, are emerging.
Most ex-governors, ministers and other political and business bigwigs that have been prosecuted and convicted to date are those with either weak links or fallen out of favour with the president. Examples were former governors of Delta state, James Ibori, and Bayelsa state, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha , whose demand for resource control irked the then president, General Olusegun Obasanjo.
In the man of that moment’s thinking, revenue from such oil deposits belonged to Nigeria all right but not to the states which make up Nigeria. Ibori kicked against that, too. Assembly was wary of passing the EFCC Bill as he wanted it. To convince the national legislators that he meant well, Aso Rock offered to fly the relevant House of Representatives Committee to South Korea to study the anti-graft agency there. The evening before the Committee members embarked on that trip, I sat with a member, Hon Chude Ofodile to discuss the pros and cons of passing the bill as Obasanjo presented it.
83: It was MER money that paid for the Ibori property in Hamstead, Westover Hill: COUNT 5: .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 of the Criminal Attempts Act 1981”. Finish. The particulars of offence section were among the dropped charges.