GRANT PRESIDENTIAL PARDON TO IBORI, IJAW GROUP URGES JONATHAN

WARRI—AN Ijaw group, the Ijaw People’s Development Initiative, IPDI, in Delta State, weekend, called on President Godluck Jonathan to grant presidential pardon to the former governor of the state, Chief James Ibori, before his exit from Aso Villa, next month.
National President the group, Mr. Austin Ozobo, in interactive with newsmen, said: “Chief Ibori has suffered enough and there is no justification for not granting him clemency, as had been done to others.”
Ozobo said Ibori was not the only corrupt leader in the country, but unfortunately, he has undergone indescribable hardship more than others.

IBORI’S CONVICTION COST N4.4BN –SENATE

The Chairman, Senate Committee on Drugs, Narcotics, Financial Crimes and anti-corruption, Senator Victor Lar, said on Friday that a whopping sum of £14m (N4.4bn) was spent to secure the conviction of former Governor James Ibori, in the United Kingdom on April 17, 2012.
Lar, who disclosed this while Federal Government agencies under the supervision of his committee were defending their 2015 budgets in the Senate, however, said the case was at no cost to Nigerian anti-graft agencies.
The senator stressed the need to amend the enabling laws of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission and Other Related Offences Commission, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, and the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, so that they could be receiving their funds directly.

PROTEST GREETS ALLEGED IMPOSITION OF IBORI’S DAUGHTER FOR ASSEMBLY RACE

Some aggrieved members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ethiope West Local Government Area of Delta State yesterday kicked against alleged imposition of former Governor James Ibori’s daughter, Atake, on the people of the area for the state House of Assembly race.
The protesters said going by the existing zoning formula in the area, it was the turn of Oghareki people to produce the Assembly candidate of PDP in 2015, warning that any attempt to impose candidate on the people of the council would be resisted.

IBORI LONDON CASE: I’M CONFUSED, BRITISH JUDGE ADMITS

As the former Delta State Governor, Chief James Ibori’s asset confiscation case resumes today at the Southwark Crown Court in London, the court will attempt to break the logjam that bogged it down all through last week; to try Ibori afresh or not.
What really bogged down the proceedings was that Judge Anthony Pitts repeatedly said in the course of the submission of James Ibori’s defence team that he was confused. He said that he was becoming even much more confused ‘now’ as the case being argued by Ibori’s lead counsel, Mr. Ivan Krolic, continued to unfold.
Expressing his frustration, Judge Pitts addressed Ibori’s lead counsel: “There was confusion though not in your mind, but there is a deep confusion in my own mind.”
Responding to the judge’s confessing, Krolic said: “If the court is confused, has the court listened to the arguments at all?

STOLEN PUBLIC FUNDS: IBORI MAY NOT PAY BACK A PENNY

A former Wickes cashier who became a Nigerian state governor and defrauded £157 million of public funds to live a lavish lifestyle may not have to pay a single penny back.
James Ibori, 51, is said to have personally pocketed £50 million of cash stolen from the west African nation’s oil-rich Delta State during his eight-year tenure.
The former £5,000-a-year Wickes cashier blew millions on luxury homes, a £12.6 million private jet, fees at some of the UK’s most expensive boarding schools for his children, first-class travel and exclusive hotels.
He owned a £600,000 fleet of armoured Range Rovers, a £120,000 Bentley and a £340,000 Mercedes Maybach that was shipped direct to his £3.2million mansion in Johannesburg.
Described as one of Nigeria’s most influential and wealthy politicians, Ibori rigged lucrative state contracts with the help of his wife, mistress, sister, and an inner circle of corrupt officials and lifted money straight out of state funds.
He also sold £23 million of state-owned shares in telecoms company Vee Mobile to fund a lavish lifestyle, including £125,000 monthly credit card bills while his people languished in poverty.

MONEY LAUNDERING: IBORI TO COMPLETE PRISON TERMS IN UK

The chances of ex-Governor James Ibori of Delta State to complete his jail term for money laundering in Nigeria look remote,according to indications yesterday.
It had been suggested that he could be repatriated from London to Nigeria to complete his jail term following an agreement between Abuja and London for Nigerians currently serving terms there to complete their sentence at home.
After a five-year legal ordeal, Ibori was jailed for 13 years in April 2012 by Justice Nicholas Pitts.
He said although the official figure alleged to have been laundered by Ibori was £50million, it could be up to £250milllion.
Pitts found him guilty of money laundering and conspiracy to make instruments contrary to section 1 (1) (a) of the criminal act of 1977.
He is however expected to spend only four and a half years in prison.

UK BUDGETS N262M FOR NIGERIAN PRISONS…TO REPATRIATE IBORI, OTHERS TO NIGERIA

The British government has said it will give Nigeria one million pounds (about N262 million) to assist on comprehensive reformation of her Prisons.
United Kingdom’s Minister of Justice, Mr. Jeremy Wright, revealed this while responding to questions from newsmen when he visited the Nigerian Minister of Interior, Comrade Abba Moro, on Thursday to finalise the process of prisoner exchange between Britain and Nigeria.
Mr. Wright further disclosed that under the agreement which he signed, several Nigerians in British prisons including former Governor of Delta State, James Ibori, would be repatriated to complete their jail terms in the country.

$15M IBORI MONEY GIVEN TO FG BY COURT

Justice Gabriel Kolawole of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, the Nigerian capital on Friday awarded the Federal government, ownership of $15million, the money used by former governor of Delta state purportedly to bribe a former chairman of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
Malam Nuhu Ribadu, head of the EFCC at the time had warehoused the money with the Central Bank of Nigeria and even went further to charge the jailed governor with a bribery attempt.
The money has been the subject of legal tussle between the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC and the Delta State Government, since Ribadu was removed from the EFCC by the Yar’Adua presidency.

IBORI BLAMES LAWYER FOR HIS WOES

Delta State, Mr. James Ibori, has blamed his incarceration in the United Kingdom on his former lawyer, Bhadresh Gohil. 
Ibori's statement was contained in one of the documents read to the Director, Forensic Accounting, Mrs. Ros Stow, when she was cross-examined by the prosecutor, Sasha Wass, during the resumed hearing on the confiscation of his assets yesterday at the Southwark Crown Court in London.
Gohil was Ibori's first lawyer, who was also jailed by the court for conspiracy to make false instrument that involved money laundering, proceeds of crime and for setting up bogus companies designed to defraud Delta State.
Stow’s accounting firm was contracted and mandated to look into the prosecutor or defendant’s files for any criminal case against Ibori and deduce if the benefits derived were Delta State’s resources.

‘IBORI’S E-MAIL DIRECTS BRIBE OFFER TO EFCC’

• RIBADU LIED AGAINST ME, SAYS OKIRO
WITH an e-mail, the Crown Prosecutor in the current hearing on the confiscation of James Ibori’s assets in a London court, Sasha Wass, has neutralized the claim by the convicted politician’s counsel, Ivan Krolick, that the former Delta State governor did not try to induce the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and that “the money -$15 million bribe- came from the Federal Government to set him up.”
Krolick had made the claim while cross-examining former EFCC chairman Nuhu Ribadu who rounded off his two-day testimony at the Southwark Crown Court at the weekend, alleging that the bribery claim was a scheme hatched to bring down Ibori.

I HAVE NO INVESTIGATION FILE FOR JAMES IBORI’S $15M BRIBE – RIBADU

As the confiscation hearing of assets of former Delta State Governor James Ibori entered its fifth day in London, yesterday, the former EFCC Chairman giving evidence of how Ibori offered him $15m bribe, said under oath that neither he nor the EFCC had an investigation file, notes of calls, meetings, briefings or records detailing the offer of the alleged bribe between him and James Ibori.
Cross- examined by Ibori’s lead counsel, Ivan Krolic, Ribadu said that the only notes he had on Ibori’s alleged offer of $15m bribe was his personal notes which he lost during the period he was being persecuted by the Federal Government when he was removed from office.

IBORI GAVE ME $15M BRIBE IN BAG –RIBADU

Desperate to halt a probe into his finances, former Delta State Governor James Ibori tried to bribe anti-corruption boss Nuhu Ribadu in 2007 with $15m in cash in a bag so heavy one man alone could not lift it, Ribadu told a London court on Thursday.
Reuters quoted Ribadu as telling the court that he pretended to take the bribe because he wanted the cash as evidence to use against Ibori in a prosecution, but rather than keep the money for himself he had it taken straight to the Central Bank of Nigeria to be kept safe in a vault.
Ibori was governor of oil-producing Delta State in southern Nigeria from 1999 to 2007. In 2012, he pleaded guilty at London’s Southwark Crown Court to 10 counts of fraud and money-laundering and was jailed for 13 years.

UK COURT SEES VIDEO OF IBORI’S PALATIAL HOME IN ABUJA

The confiscation hearing of the assets of former Nigerian governor, James Onanefe Ibori continued in London today, with the court shown footage of a palatial property built in Nigeria for him.
The mansion built for the jailed former governor, has marble columns and a private gym, that offered a glimpse into the lifestyle of Nigeria’s ruling class.
The opulent mansion staffed by cooks, maids and chauffeurs was just one of a portfolio of properties across the world worth over $10 million in total that Ibori acquired while governor of oil-producing Delta State from 1999 to 2007, Reuters reported.
Footage of the property at Clement Isong Street in Abuja, taken by Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) when it searched the home this year, revealed a level of luxury unimaginable to most of Nigeria’s 170 million people.
The majority live in ramshackle housing with little or no electricity or running water.
The film showed a monumental facade with white marble columns two storeys high. Inside were vast reception rooms adorned with crystal chandeliers, gilded mirrors and marble-topped tables.

IBORI’S UK LAWYER QUESTIONED OVER ALLEGED POLICE BRIBERY

•Alleged to have hired private eyes to buy information from London Police
One of the counsels to Chief James Ibori, the jailed former governor of Delta State, has been arrested in London for allegedly attempting to pervert the course of justice in the money-laundering case that got the politician sent to prison.
Ian Timlin, a former litigation partner at City Law Firm Speechly Bircham, was held by Met anti-corruption detectives investigating the alleged bribery of police officers. The senior lawyer was arrested at his home in Kent on suspicion of conspiracy to corrupt a police officer, perverting the course of justice and money-laundering offences concerning Ibori.
The former governor was jailed last year for embezzlement after admitting stealing almost £50m, although the true amount may have been many times greater.

35 PERCENT OF EFCC BUDGET SPENT TO INVESTIGATE IBORI

A bout 35 percent of N15 billion annual budget of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC was spent by the United Kingdom to investigate money laundering allegations against former Delta governor, James Onanefe Ibori.

This revelation was made by a senior lawyer and private prosecutor for the EFCC, Chief Godwin Obla, in an interview with our correspondent.

Obla, who regretted the poor funding of the anticorruption agency, in the face of high expectations from the public, drew parallels between the commitment of the UK government in fighting money laundering offences as exemplified in the huge budget it expended in securing Ibori’s conviction – and the perceived inadequate funding of the commission by the Federal Government.