Labour Leaders Want Judicial System Sanitised

Labour leaders on Thursday said that there should be complete cleansing of the Nigerian judicial system for the re-trial of the former Delta State governor, James Ibori, to be successful.

The union leaders were reacting to the statement by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) that it expected Ibori to face trial in Nigeria after serving his term in the UK.

The EFCC said Ibori was to return to Nigeria to face other criminal charges pending in courts from his eight year rule of Delta State.

The former governor was sentenced on April 17 to 13 years imprisonment by a London court for fraud and money laundering to the tune of N12 billion (50 million pounds sterling).

Mr. Abiodun Ogunsegha, General-Secretary, Senior Staff Association of Electricity and Allied Company, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that it might be difficult to re-try Ibori.

Ogunsegha said it would be difficult for the same system that acquitted him in 2007 to convict him.

“The Nigeria court system should be sanitised, that is the only way the EFCC can succeed to take Ibori to court to face other criminal charges.

“For the court in Asaba created a year before the judgement to dismiss the 170-count charge against the ex-governor, shows that the level of decay in the judiciary has sunk deep,” he said.

The union’s scribe said that it would be hard to go back to the same system that discharged and acquitted Ibori five years ago and expect it to be different.

He said it was regrettable that it was through the efforts of the EFCC that Ibori was first taken to court and advised the commission to drop the issue since UK has sentenced him.

Mr. Solomon Onaghinon, Secretary-General, Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria, told NAN that the EFCC should not re-arraign Ibori under the judicial system in Nigeria.

He said that it was not lawful to charge a person twice for the same offence.

“Since the court in Asaba had discharged and acquitted Ibori on all the 170-count charge, the EFCC should appeal if they insist on taking him to court again,” Onaghinon said.

He said that the rot in the judiciary was revealed when somebody charged for bank fraud and corruption of billions of Naira was recently acquitted by the same system.

He advised the federal government to ensure that those who had misappropriated funds in various sectors of the economy were made to return them to avoid the wrath of Nigerians.

Mr Phillip Agbonkonkon, General-Secretary, Amalgamated Union of Public Corporations, Civil Service Technical and Recreational Services Employees, said that Ibori should not be re-tried because the system would set him free.

“People are still embezzling money in Nigeria and they are being acquitted and discharged by our courts.

“They freed Ibori in 2007 and they will do it again and nothing will happen,“ he said.