SOME legal practitioners who participated in the probe launched against the former governor of Delta State, Chief James Ibori, in Nigeria have volunteered to release more information to the British court currently trying some aides of the former governor for alleged money laundering.
Udoamaka Onigbo and Christine Ibori-Ibie, are being tried at a Southwark Crown Court in London on the allegation that their principal conspired to defraud Delta State, while they had also been slammed with money laundering charges, relating to the sum of $140 million reportedly siphoned from Nigeria.
One of the counsel to Chief Edwin Clark, a South-South leader and Mr. Kayode Ajulo, who disclosed this in a press statement made available to the Nigerian Tribune, in Abuja, said Ibori should stop playing the ostrich on the allegations of fraud levelled against him, but should rather prove his innocence.
He informed that he and other Nigerian lawyers, who knew much about the alleged offences by the former Delta State governor, had, therefore, resolved to travel to the United Kingdom to offer detailed information required by the British Court on the allegations against Ibori, if only to set the record straight.
Ajulo said it was unthinkable that Ibori had suddenly found the voice to absolve himself of wrongdoing while he served as governor. “Nigerians are not stupid and Ibori should be asked whether Nuhu Ribadu or Obasanjo had a hand in his double conviction 18 years ago in Britain.
“Ibori and his then girlfriend (and now wife), Theresa Ibori (nee Nakanda) ought to have explained the reason the court slammed a fine of £300 on him, even as he was made to pay another £450 cost for the offences he committed.
“Ibori should also be asked whether Ribadu and Obasanjo had anything to do with the allegations of fraud levelled against him in 1993, during the regime of General Sani Abacha, on how he was involved in more than a million dollars found in his account by the US government.”
The Abuja-based lawyer said Ibori had prepared an escape route for himself in respect of all weighty allegations levelled against him by touting the names of former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, just like any other Nigerian who has axe to grind with the two.
He wondered why the former governor of Delta State failed to bring the Delta Elders and Citizens Forum, led by Chief Edwin Clark into the picture, since the group was initially responsible for attempts at ensuring his prosecution on the allegations against him.
The former governor of Delta State had, at the weekend, in Lagos, addressed the media, during which he pinned his travails with the London Metropolitan Police on former President Obasanjo and Mallam Ribadu, former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
According to him, while Obasanjo had been after him, specifically, for the daring attempt he made in scuttling his planned second term in office, using the forum of ex-state governors, Ribadu had equally been aiming at his jugular for failing to help him become Inspector General of Police.
Although the former president has not reacted to the the claims by Ibori, Ribadu, currently on self-exile, in Britain, has denied the allegations levelled against him by the former governor who he described as a “convicted felon.”
He said he knew Ibori too well as an ex-convict not to ever seek his assistance in becoming the inspector general of police in Nigeria, even as he alluded to the alleged $15 million bribe once offered to him by Ibori as an evidence of his guilt of allegations of corruption levelled against him.
The Nigerian Tribune made efforts to reach the media aide to the former governor, Mr. Tony Eluemunor, but these efforts proved abortive, as his phone as at the time of filing this report was switched off.