Ibori: One Country’s Shameful Non-Secret

In the end, for James Onanefe Ibori
last week, it was very simple, very
quiet, and very lonely.
“Guilty,” he said, of himself.
In the sleepless hours before that
moment, the former governor of
Delta State must have had plenty of
conversations with his high-priced
lawyers, who must have had many
conversations with the prosecution,
who must have been holding up a
sign which read: Dead End.
Do you know why municipal
administrators and road
construction crews put Dead End
signs on roads?
They do so to avoid accidents.
Otherwise, most Dead Ends are
pretty obvious.
In Mr. Ibori’s case, many things
were quite clear that day in Dubai
when he heard the words, “You are
under arrest!”
He had been around British law, its
lawyers and courtrooms. He had
reviewed the famous 1970s Iyabo
Olurunkoya case which sent the
lovely Lagosian to jail. He knew
intimate details of the case of
former Plateau State Governor
Joshua Dariye, and even more of
Governor Dipreye Alamieyeseigha.
He knew the British.
Ibori knew British lawyers: how
professional and diligent they were,
especially when they were being
heavily paid. He had faced them
twice before, when he could not
really afford to pay them, and had
twice been convicted.
Still, he knew they were the best
friend a man could have if you were
paying them handsomely. And this
time, Ibori had the cash and the
connections to pay them.
That was until the contracts were all
signed and the lawyers were
cashing the cheques. And then,
curiously, the courtroom of
Southwark Crown Court kept getting
smaller and growing hotter at each
hearing.
And then, one night last week, they
told him, quietly, that the choice
before him was not jail or no jail,
but between jail for close to forever
and jail for shorter than that.
What was “shorter than that,” the
self-proclaimed Odidigborigbo of
Africa must have wanted to know.
“Well, in all honesty, one or two
decades, sir!” A robust Cockney
accent.
At which point Ibori must have
emitted an admixture of a gasp and
a sigh, his tongue hanging out of
his mouth: “As in 10 or 20 years?”
Of all the qualities of Time, one of
the most profound is its ability to
stand perfectly still when you have
nowhere to go. I imagine that when
your lawyer says you can choose
between forever and a couple of
decades for the right to determine
how long you will be able to travel
only to the toilet, you must feel
pretty boxed in.
As we now know, Mr. Ibori, his focus
on self-preservation, chose shorter-
than-forever.
“Guilty, Your Honour.”
Let us remember that no significant
money-launderer acts alone. Not
one. They gather friends and
relatives and even acquaintances to
help in the ultimate hauling and
trucking, for a share. In Mr. Ibori’s
own circle, at least four, who include
his wife, his sister and his mistress,
have already been sent to jail.
But that was not the plan. All of his
UK troubles seemingly behind him,
and back in Nigeria during the Sani
Abacha years, Mr. Ibori learned
quickly that Nigeria was his natural
terrain, a place where you could do
whatever you want, if you knew how
to do it, and get away with it. A
hustler’s heaven.
He learned you could purchase
people and justice and position in
almost the same way you paid
locally for goods and services:
cash. That must have been why
becoming governor of Delta State
was so easy.
But once “Governor,” he knew he
could have it for all of eight years,
and for longer if Olusegun Obasanjo
implemented his third term
scheme. But imagine: eight years
in which to move from being Lord
and Master of small and cramped
Delta State into owning Africa and
the world.
Let the records show, then, that he
did rule Delta for those eight years,
as he had promised himself, and
then ensured he was succeeded in
office by his cousin. Let the records
also show that he then bankrolled
the election of the new President,
his former colleague in the
Governors’ Forum, Umaru
Yar’Adua.
Once that was accomplished, Ibori
was set for life—our life, that is,
because his was already fully
assured. He knew that he could live
forever. He owned Aso Rock and all
that was within.
Recall that in a famous interview in
April 2009 with The Guardian, Mr.
Yar’Adua was asked if it bothered
him that his government appeared
soft on corruption and that some
former governors who were
perceived to be corrupt were so
close to his government.
Answered Yar’Adua: “It is…between
me and them, the ex-governors.
You see, these former governors are
my colleagues. We had worked
together for eight years. Because I
am the President, I cannot just
jettison people I know…I don’t know
anything else about the fight
against corruption that we have not
done.”
That may explain why, when the
time came and the EFCC outlined
170 charges of corruption against
Mr. Ibori, he got exactly the trial he
wanted, and at the location,
courtroom, prosecutor and judge of
his choosing. Not surprisingly, all
of the 170 counts were dismissed,
and the Third Class graduate of the
University of Benin climbed aboard
a helicopter to the institute to
deliver a Founder’s Day lecture.
The trouble was that Mr. Yar’Adua’s
health betrayed him and the power
cabal of which Mr. Ibori was a
leading member. But being an
active cabalist, regrettably,
guaranteed the future only if Mr.
Yar’Adua returned to power, but he
did not. His death left exposed all
of those who had trampled on his
would-be successor, deliberately or
otherwise.
That was why Mr. Ibori was
wandering around the wilds of
Dubai without a loincloth to cover
his manhood.
“Guilty.”
That is not an easy word to say.
Judges throw it only at others.
What must have made it even more
painful is Ibori’s knowledge of many
of his accomplices who got away
with a lot of “his” money;
accomplices who must be drinking
to British justice today as Ibori’s
incarceration makes all that money
theirs.
“Guilty.”
To the former governor, those words
must have been surreal, like the
dreams of a drunk. Once upon
another lifetime, Mr. Ibori was a
shop cashier in the same
neighborhood. London, England:
the object of much lust and subject
of many a song.
He found himself when he left
England, to become all-powerful and
all-conquering, with the world at his
feet. To return there only to face a
long jail stretch must be very
painful.
The British—God bless them—have
pledged to trace Ibori’s assets to the
ends of the earth. They will
assemble everything, deduct their
expenses, and send Nigeria the
change.
That will still be a fairly healthy
return, except that the next chapter
seems pre-written. The repatriated
loot, if the history and character of
the current government and its
sponsoring party are any guide, will
either vanish or be held in trust for
Mr. Ibori. The Abacha loot has never
been accounted for.
The final regret Mr. Ibori will have a
lot of time to think about, therefore,
will be about all those prominent
Nigerians who have got away with
their “share of the national cake.”
He knows them all.
The funny part is that he could have
been a Senator, in that retirement
home where hypocrisy, looting,
pedophilia, certificate forgery and
image laundering are normal and
you do not even have to read a
single bill.
The tragedy, however, is that Mr.
Ibori’s conviction is a denunciation
of our independence and our
democracy. It underlines the shame
that passes for governance in
Nigeria, in all the arms of the
government, and across 50 years.
• sonala.olumhense@gmail.com