The news from Southwark Crown Court London, on Monday, about the acceptance of guilt by James Ibori, made my day. I practically jumped from my seat, pumped my fist in the air and declared to my colleague in the office, “We got him!”
The news from Southwark Crown Court London, on Monday, about the acceptance of guilt by James Ibori, made my day. I practically jumped from my seat, pumped my fist in the air and declared to my colleague in the office, “We got him!”
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But I wasn’t the one who got James Ibori. I wasn’t even a part of those who did. I couldn’t have. Justice got him, although it was aided by distance. In this clime, justice is impotent; castrated by corruption, that powerful monster that runs the Nigerian society. Justice has no voice here. It has long been silenced by the loud noise from sleaze; and quietened by the scary grip of official impunity.
Out of excitement I had mistaken myself as part of justice; the justice that caught the rogue former governor of Nigeria’s oil-rich Delta State. In a way, I may be pardoned for getting it mixed up. I had kicked and grumbled about how, in December 2009, Justice (?) Marcel Awokulehin of a Federal High Court in Asaba, Delta State, discharged and acquitted Ibori of all 170-count charges of corruption involving the laundering of millions of dollars, filed against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
The judge, in the character of his cash-and-carry ilk in Nigeria’s Judiciary, cited lack of evidence as his reason for such miscarriage of justice. Sources that know reported that the judge was bribed with $5 million for that phony judgment.
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I told everybody around me that a supposed custodian of justice had made an unjust declaration. Nigeria was defiled on the temple of justice; Deltans whose billions were stolen by Ibori were ridiculed by that verdict. It wasn’t justice, it was judgment procured with petro-naira.
I am not in the legal profession. Yet I have always believed that the Nigerian bench stinks of corruption. You don’t need any cast iron evidence to appreciate that the answer to the stupendous wealth – almost always sudden – of the Nigerian public official is traceable to massive funds-looting. Our courts seem to have made a career of perverting justice using “technicalities” as excuse. We see this in election cases. We see it in corruption cases. The Nigerian bench is for sale, the highest bidder gets a favorable judgment. It hasn’t been in all cases, but the cases in which justice truly prevailed are far and in between.
This is why Ibori and the rest members of his tribe of criminals rule and reign. They know the justice system is highly flawed; judges are for sale. They steal staggering amounts and bribe those who should bring them to justice. And the latter frustrate any attempt to sanction criminal acts.
2009 was the year of Yar’Adua and Michael Aondoakaa, the man whose name is as unpronounceable as his desecration of the office he occupied is unforgettable. The late president was waging a protracted battle against infirmities, giving room to the criminal elements in his government to maximize their gifts of roguery.
Michael Aondoakaa, the then Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, was a standing member of that group. He became Ibori’s media aide rather than his prosecutor. That was a head-banging paradox; a maze that couldn’t be sussed out by any mortal. He was reported by several credible sources to have been negotiating with fraudulent judges to protect his criminal friends. It was even said that he wrote a certain judgment on election petition that involved his boss, and the members of the bench handling the case read out the judgment in the court.
With Aondoakaa as Nigeria’s chief law officer, official corruption grew in leaps and bounds. It had the tacit endorsement of the presidency. James Ibori was one of the new faces of corruption. He became the unit of measurement of stealing with impunity. To be sure of safety, he ensured Nuhu Ribadu – the nation’s anti-corruption chief then – was banished. He needed enough space to operate. He got that.
I wonder why Ibori was quick to plead guilty. Afterall he denied being a criminal while in Nigeria. He has always been the saint; the victim of political persecution. First he blamed former President Obasanjo for his travails. Obasanjo wanted him dead because he couldn’t deliver tenure elongation to the Ota Farmer. And then entered Jonathan. Jonathan wanted him buried alive because they never were political friends even as governors of sister states. When Jonathan became president, the first person he thought to show his might was Ibori, the self-styled ogidigbodigbo of Africa.
So how did Ibori suddenly agree to being a thief in London? Why did he plead guilty to the charges slammed against him? The answer isn’t difficult to guess. He saw that in the UK, justice is not for sale. With stolen public funds in his possession, he probably is richer than the entire jury in the Southwark Crown Court put together. Given his modus operandi as master of the game of settlement, he would have made efforts to secure favourable judgment: declare me innocent and I’ll give you 50% of all that I stole. Set me free and go with 75% of my wealth.
Every gifted crook understands that a credible name is an asset. The Ibori that I have followed closely wouldn’t mind giving the Brits 90% of all he has –both legitimate and stolen – just to be declared innocent by a London court. He understands perfectly that such a feat has the potential of even handing him the key of the nation’s vault – that which is only accessible from Abuja. He would have made efforts to buy them over, to pervert justice in a foreign land.
It worked for him in Nigeria. It has always worked for the members of the political tribe to which he belongs. Peter Odili purchased a perpetual injunction restraining any man born of a woman from asking him to account for his supposed stewardship in Rivers State as governor. A judge actually gave that ruling and went home happy.
Ibori couldn’t buy the judgment the way he bought one – years ago -that declared that he wasn’t the building materials thief in Abuja. A judge once pronounced that the James Ibori who was convicted of that offence was different from James Ibori, the former governor of Delta State. In London, he couldn’t secure a mischievous adjournment like Orji Uzor Kalu – a major competitor of Iboris in the public funds looting industry – has been getting. He couldn’t buy a ridiculous judgment like Lucky Igbinedion of Edo State, a top player in the corruption industry, bought.
On Monday, he realized, and his lawyers must have told him too, that the game was up. He must have understood by now that there’s a limit to what stolen money can buy. If money answers all things, then it doesn’t have to be stolen. Ibori will be taking ranks with his wife, sister, girlfriend and lawyer as prison inmates. That is his just desert. And this is why I am happy.
But as a people, we must appreciate how bad our situation has become. It took a foreign country – whose resources weren’t stolen; who, in fact, is supposed to be a beneficiary of Ibori’s criminality – to bring him to justice. They demonstrated rare tenacity in the pursuit of that which is right before men and God and ensured justice was done.
We pretend to be interested in transforming our country, yet we have in every federal ministry, state government, senatorial zone and federal constituency many Iboris. Some are even more audacious.
And each time the EFCC reluctantly takes any one of them to court, the slaves of stolen money who we address as judges hand out ridiculous judgments in exchange for cash.
The judges in the countries that are working aren’t as rich as Bill Gates or Warren Buffet. They simply have given money its place in their lives. They know that a man’s worth is not just measured in the size – or weight – of his bank account. They don’t sell justice for money because they understand that a society may survive without much money, but no society survives without justice.
By April, the verdict will be passed. Ibori may be serving up 10 years in jail. That is what justice means to me. That is the judgment that billions of naira from James Onanefe Ibori could alter.
Written by Chinedu C. Ekeke
Www.ekekeee.com
Follow me on twitter: @ekekeee
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