Chief James Ibori, ex-governor of Delta state, Nigeria, who was declared wanted for interrogation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has denied receiving any invitation and maintained that the EFCC’s action is political and not criminal.
A statement by his media assistant, Mr. Tony Eluemunor, said, “This is a political harassment that demands for vigorous legal challenge so that Nigeria is not ruled like a fiefdom – and that is what I will give. Ibori asks his supporters not to panic because up till today, Tuesday, April 13, 2010, no letter inviting him for questioning from either the EFCC or any other security agency, has been received in any of his houses both in Abuja or Lagos. EFCC knows this to be the truth. That is why it did not mention the dates of those alleged invitations.
“Instead, it is on record that Ibori’s counsel, Mr. J. B. Dauda, SAN, wrote a petition to both the Attorney-General of the Federation and the Chairman of EFCC, dated Monday, April 12, 2010, (and this was reported in some national and internet publications of April 13, 2010) over the unsubstantiated media reports of the past two weeks that Ibori had been on the run from the EFCC. Also, it is on record that Ibori has instituted a suit against the EFCC over this same issue.”
“After EFCC received Ibori’s petition and also learnt that Ibori had filed a suit against the agency in court, it applied its Gestapo tactics and rushed to the news media with the malicious falsehood that the agency had invited Ibori for questioning. Ibori maintains that EFCC’s action is just political and not criminal, and it shows that the arm-twisting that defaced the final years of the last administration has been allowed back into Nigeria as the country enters an election year.”
However, Mr. Ibori later acknowledged receipt of an invitation letter from EFCC, dated March 22, 2010 but delivered after he released his statement on April 12, 2010 . He said the letter asked him to report to the EFCC on April 17, 2010 and he wondered why he was declared wanted before the due date.
Mr. Ibori’s petition to the Attorney-General and the EFCC said, “It is a matter of public record and judicial decisions that you have on behalf of the Attorney-General vigorously investigated every aspect of our client’s tenure as Governor of Delta State and failed to find any crime committed inclusive of allegations of conspiracy, official corruption, diversion and misappropriation of public funds, stealing and money laundering for the period 29th May, 1999 to 29th May, 2007. The said investigation covered among other issues the purchase of Wilbros by Ascot and the role of the Applicant in respect thereof.”
“It is also a matter of record that the head of the investigators, Yahaya Bello, and contained in his counter affidavit filed in Suit No. FHC/B/ CS/862/2007 AG Delta v. EFCC& Ords, admitted that all these facts have been investigated and the matter charged to court. In very simple elementary terms, what your organisation is doing is seeking to reinvestigate a matter you have already investigated and discharged, which in this instance amounts to an acquittal, amounts to not only a complete infraction of the Nigerian Constitution but a breach of our client’s fundamental human rights.
“Nowhere in the world except in of course in some notorious Banana Republics is the rule of law and the constitutionalism trampled upon so aggressively as you are doing in this instance. It is neither fair nor decent to criminalize our client on the pages of the newspapers without any formal invitation to clear his name, which the courts have already done for him.
“Take notice therefore that if there is any attempt to interfere with our client’s liberty merely because you control the coercive forces we shall have no option but to have recourse to judicial redress before the courts which is the last hope for the defenceless man such as our client.”