Today’s decision by the Court of Cessation of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) ends the appeals process in the James Ibori extradition case, according to a source in the UK Home Office.
Today’s decision by the Court of Cessation of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) ends the appeals process in the James Ibori extradition case, according to a source in the UK Home Office.
In a landmark decision, the Court of Cessation ruled that the former governor of Delta state, be extradited to the United Kingdom to face trial for money laundering, forgery, credit card fraud and grand theft charges. The decision confirmed last October’s verdict by the Court of First Instance which ordered the once untouchable Nigerian politician extradited to the UK, the country where he was twice convicted in the 1990s for other offences before relocating to Nigeria and becoming a politician. 
Asked today if the British authorities expected further appeals from Ibori, our source, who requested anonymity, stated, "Not that we are aware of. We do not believe he has another chance to appeal."
Court of Appeal Justice, Amina Augie
That would mean that Ibori has exhausted the final trick in his book in the UAE to try to avoid the prospects of three rugged trials trial next year for an array of acts of money laundering, forgery and fraud. He will have to face three separate trials similar to the ones that have already sent his wife, sister and a mistress away for five years each in British jails; he can considerably rougher treatment than that.
When Ibori lands in the dock of a UK court, it will be the final stage in an astonishing political life that began during the years of the murderous Sani Abacha, with whom he enjoyed a working relationship based on violence, fraud and intimidation. In the rabidly rigged elections of 1999, he became Delta State governor, a position he leveraged into unprecedented looting of state resources.
After two terms of office, he deployed further rigging and fraud to consolidate his hold on Delta State by installing his cousin, Emmanual Uduaghan, as his successor. For himself, he used his closeness to the late Nigerian president, Umaru Yar'Adua, to pervert the cause of justice, aided in particular by the EFCC chairperson, Farida Waziri, and the disgraced former Attorney General of the Federation, Michael Aondoakaa. As AGF, Aondoakaa not only issued letters to the UK clearing Ibori if all corruption charges, he also stalled on all mutual legal assistance requests. Last year, he even showed up in person in London to throw the weight of his office behind Ibori, but he was chased out of town by Nigerians in the city who used a unique phone strategy to besiege his hotel.
Ibori reigned like a gadfly, using his loot to bribe and sometimes coerce the local media to do his bidding. There was precious little that was beyond either his money or his criminal imagination: on the same day he was set free of 170 charges of corruption by a court set up just for him in Asaba, he recruited his alma mater, the University of Benin to grant him a "Founder's day" lecture. A media concern in Lagos also organized a lecture in his honor at the National Institute of International Affairs where he purportedly gave a lecture on the crisis in the "Niger Delta". Some protesters who courageously picketed the event were attacked and injured by thugs hired by Ibori's spokesperson, Tony Eluemunor.
For his court trial, the self-styled “Odidigborigbo of Africa" took advantage of the aid of his cousin, Emmanuel Uduaghan. Together, and with Yar’Adua’s nodding consent, Ibori got a judge, prosecutor and courtroom of his own to suppress each of the 170 counts of money laundering charges filed against him by a conniving EFCC leadership. Their scheme was so sophisticated that they used the same prosecutor, who, in professional advice to the Office of the AGF about prosecuting Ibori, had originally penned a legal opinion dealing with how to get the charges against Ibori dismissed.
That was after a Court of Appeal in Kaduna, headed by Justice Amina Augie, one of Ibori's protégés, discharged him from trial at a Federal High Court in Kaduna following his arrest in December 2007. That arrest, and the subsequent prosecution of the man known as the "Oil Sheikh," led to the disbanding of the EFCC operatives involved in his arrest. The chairman of the agency, Nuhu Ribadu, was removed overnight and sent on a wild goose chase in Kuru, Plateau State. By the time he finished his course, he was demoted, twice shot at, and hounded out of Nigeria. The $19 million bribe money used by Ibori to try to silence Ribadu remains at the Central Bank of Nigeria, where the former EFCC boss deposited it. That evidence was not admitted by Justice Mercel Awokulehin, the judge who quashed the 170-count charges without any form of trial.
After Mr. Yar'Adua died in May 2010, the EFCC and the Nigerian police made a feeble attempt at arresting Ibori on different charges of money laundering regarding his theft of Delta State shares at Oceanic Bank as collateral for a fraudulent bank loan from InterContinenal Bank to buy Wilbros Nigeria Limited. The officers were chased by stick wielding youth from his hometown in Oghara, Delta State. The failure of the police to apprehend him was not really a surprise, as sources told SaharaReporters that Mrs. Waziri and the IG of police had hinted Ibori of the impending arrest. His scripted attempted “arrest” followed an invitation to the headquarters of the EFCC, which he simply ignored.
Ibori fled to the United Arab Emirate city of Dubai in a private jet he owned but which was reportedly registered in the name of Notore Chemicals Industries Nigeria Limited, a company he bought under shady dealings with some UK and American investors. Ibori travelled to Dubai in the company of his latest mistress, Senami Sossou.
As soon as the UK police got wind of his sojourn in Dubai, they issued a red notice through Interpol by which they eventually snagged him. Initially, and according to reliable sources, Ibori’s first appearance in court was made easy by the help of former Nigerian VP, Abubakar Atiku, who used his contacts in Dubai to get him released on bail. That bail was revoked abruptly after word came to the UAE authorities that Ibori was planning to escape through Iran disguised as a Sudanese traveler.
While Ibori was appealing the October ruling by the UAE court of First Instance in Dubai that he be extradited to the UK, a London jury at the Southwark Crown convicted his wife, Theresa Nkoyo and his UK-lawyer, Bhadresh Gohil in related money-laundering case. This was in addition to the convictions and sentencing of his mistress, Udoamaka Okoronkwo (Onuigbo) and his older sister, Christine Ibie to prison earlier.
What has compounded Ibori’s position as he inches towards trial in the UK is that his trusted confidant and UK lawyer, Mr. Gohil, only last week in a separate trial pleaded guilty to a series of charges regarding the theft of V-mobile shares belonging to Delta and Akwa Ibom States. He awaits sentencing as soon as the other conspirators are fully tried.
Whenever Ibori sets foot in the UK, he would be stepping on familiar grounds. Before retiring to Nigeria in the earlier 1990s to join the deadly Abacha regime, Ibori drove taxis in London, worked in stores and engaged in credit card frauds and petty crimes along with his girlfriend, Theresa Nkoyo Nakanda, the daughter of a Nigerian diplomat who would later become his wife. Both of them were convicted and fined for stealing building materials in Wickes, a London departmental store. To avoid detection, Ibori changed his date of birth, headed to Nigeria and engaged with an Abacha killer cell supervised by Abacha’s Chief Security officer, Al-Mustapha. He has been fingered in the assassination of former National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) financier, Alfred Rewane.
Even in Nigeria, Ibori made a big business of stealing building materials. In 1995, he was convicted for stealing such materials from a construction site in Abuja and was duly sentenced for stealing, but when the allegations surfaced during his second term in office, he used monies from his prodigiously-lucrative new looting enterprise in Delta State to bribe several judges, including of the Supreme Court, to pre-determine the legal outcome, even though the judges and police officers that arrested had given compelling testimonies at the trial.
Although it is not clear when Ibori would be moved to the UK, he will face at least three lengthy and bumpy trials. A fourth case, relating to the NAFCON company buyout, is also possible.
Ibori would be the second person to be extradited to the UK from Dubai. The first was Jeleel Ahmed, who was extradited from the UAE to Britain in 2009, accused of killing 23 year old Shanwaz Ali in Birmingham in January 2006. The UAE and Britain ratified the extradition treaty between them in 2008. Nigeria does not have an extradition treaty with the UAE and the UAE-UK extradition treaty forbids further extradition to a third country.
