Ogidigbodigbo’s Road To British jail

Were it for his political foray, James Onanefe Ibori could have remained unheard of and unexposed, for the rest of his life. But he wanted power, influence and all the apparatuses of such power.

His pocket was as deep as his self confidence. He beat political giants to pick the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, governorship ticket of Delta State.

Ever since then, he rode on high waves, establishing a strong political kingdom, where he, popularly called Ogidigboigbo by his people, reigned as a human deity.

Wherever he went in his Urhobo homeland, the shouts of Ogidigbodigbo rent the air. Ogidigbodigbo literally means an “Overall war commander and benefactor of the people.”

In fact, at the end of his governorship term in 1997, Ibori would probably have remained in peace, but for his quest to be a political godfather.

That drew him into the public square and beamed the search light on him. His activities were scanned with forensic lens and his hands were found full of filth.

On December 17, 2009, a federal high court sitting in Asaba, the Delta State capital, acquitted James Onanefe Ibori of all the 170 charges of corruption brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.

The flamboyant former Delta State governor immediately walked out of the courtroom into the hands of his jubilant supporters.

But three months after President Goodluck Jonathan succeeded the late President Umaru Yar’Adua in April 2010, a fresh allegation of stealing was made against him.

This time around, he was accused of stealing N40billion in a case filed against him by the EFCC but he evaded arrest and ran into the creeks of his Oghara hometown, where he was guarded by private and communal militias.

Few days after, he fled the village and ran to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates to begin a new life, but fate had a different plan for him, and thus began his march to jail.

He was arrested and extradited to the United Kingdom, where he was eventually jailed on Tuesday.

A statement by Sue Patten, Head of the Crown Prosecution Service Central Fraud Group, said the sentencing was a product of seven years of determined work by a specialist team from the CPS Central Fraud Group and investigators as well as cooperation of many countries.

Patten said unravelling Ibori’s fraud was one of the most difficult tasks the CPS had undertaken in its 35 years of existence. Patten’s take on the Delta ex-governor is a sad commentary on the life of fraud Ibori had lived.

The CPS boss’ statement reads, “James Ibori, the former Governor of Delta State in Nigeria, has today (Tuesday) been sentenced at Southwark Crown Court to 13 years’ of imprisonment after seven years of determined work by a specialist team from the Crown Prosecution Service Central Fraud Group and investigators, which has brought him and several of his corrupt associates to justice.

“Very significant co-operation was secured from many countries worldwide to enable us to bring this prosecution: In 2011 CPS lawyers secured the extradition of James Ibori in one of the first ever extraditions from the UAE under a new treaty.

“The case we assembled was on a large scale and in several prosecutions, involving 151 folders or over 60,000 pages of evidence which have been served over the last two years. The Specialist Fraud Prosecutor dedicated to this case has described it as by far the most complex he has dealt with in 35 years of service.

“During his two terms as governor of Delta State, James Ibori deliberately and systematically defrauded the people whose interests he had been elected to represent. The sums involved in the offences to which Ibori has pleaded guilty amount to approximately £50 million, acquired at the expense of some of the poorest people in the world.”

Ibori’s walk to jail was indeed a long one. Cumulatively, the man and his collaborators – wife, girlfriend, sister, lawyer and others – have bagged 43 years’ imprisonment.

—Yisa Jamiu