James Ibori: Who Owns the Loot: Nigeria or Delta State Government?
By Emeka Esogbue
There
have been disputes of ownership in Nigeria between Federal Government and the
Delta State Government over the recovered Ibori loot from the United Kingdom
and as Chukwudi Enebeli rightly noted in his report of the hotly contested
loot: “the news of the
eventual repatriation of part of the public funds looted by former Governor of
Delta State, Chief James Ibori, while serving as the Governor of Delta State,
received overwhelming acceptance and celebration among the Nigerian populace.
However, the issue of who is entitled to the repatriated funds has generated
heated arguments in several quarters of the polity”. The question is simply,
who should keep the recovered Ibori loot?
In his additional
supply of information over the repatriated loot, Enebeli took his readers through
some important background evidence thus:
“On the 9th of March
2021, the United Kingdom signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the
Federal Government of Nigeria, to return the sum of £4.2 million (“repatriated
funds”) being part of the recovered funds to Nigeria”.
The Ibori loot once
repatriated, sparked off exchanges in the Nigerian space between the Federal Government
of Nigeria and the Delta State Government over who should own it. However, it
was by extension, a generation of mixed feelings among the commentators on the
repatriated fund with each of the commentators eschewed, churning out common
reasons as well legal grounds on who between the two governments it should go
to, a development not strange in the uncoordinated nation.
No sooner the fund was
repatriated than the Federal Government announced that the sent-back £4.2
million would be used in the construction of the Second Niger Bridge,
Abuja-Kano Road, and Lagos-Ibadan Express Road. While the Federal Government
stands on the claim that the offence committed by former Governor James Ibori was
a breach of the Nigerian law and that it has a Memorandum of Understanding with
the UK Government, the State Government considers the fund as belonging to
them, having been stolen from its treasury by its former leader.
In spite of the Federal
Government claim that it played some roles in time of the trial which confers
the returned funds to the nation’s central government, the State Government is
in contrast of the stand. There are also other commentators that stand with the
Federal Government, claiming that the Delta State Government at the time
announced to the world that no such money was missing in its state coffers,
thus, setting James Ibori free on its part.
Writing in The
Guardian of March 18 2021, in what is titled “Why Delta State Cannot Claim £4.2
million Ibori Loot”, Joseph Onyekwere and Monday Osayande reported
the view of Prof Ernest Ojukwu (SAN). Prof Ojukwu’s argument is that the Delta
State cannot lay claim to the loot. His basis is that the UK Court ordered the
fund forfeited to the UK and neither the Federal or Delta State Government. For
him, since Nigeria did not prosecute Ibori, it was the UK Court that handed
over the fund to Nigeria and not the Delta State Government. The handing of the
fund according to him comes with the mandate to spend it on agreed projects. He
went further to argue that the money could only be legitimately paid into the
Federal account for sharing by the Federal, State and Local Government.
Also inclusive in this
school of thought as published in The Eagle edition of March 16 2021, is Dr.
Kayode Ajulo, a prominent civil rights lawyer and activist who harangued the
Delta State Government and others consistently clamouring for the release of
the repatriated funds. Ajulo said:
“Going by the history of
the case and role played by the Delta State Government during the trial of the
former Governor, it is hypocritical for the state to continue to clamour that
the funds be returned to it”.
Ajulo’s opinion is
supported by Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice,
Abubakar Malami (SAN) who had in his earlier announcement of the return of the
fund, argued that the offences with which James Ibori was charged were federal
offences and so the Federal Government and not the Delta State Government is
the victim of the crime. This would mean that by implication, Nigerians and not
just the Delta people are affected by the fund pilfered by James Ibori of Delta
State.
On the contrary, top
Legal Luminary from the state, Prof Itse Sagay threw his weight behind the
Delta State Government, claiming that it was utterly wrong for the Federal
Government of Nigeria to spend the state fund in areas and places that lacked
direct bearing with the people of the state from whom the fund was generated in
the first place. Prof Sagay found support in Femi Falana (SAN), whose view is
that the Federal Government that frustrated the trial of James Ibori now wants
to receive the loot recovered from him.
He said that the trial
of James Ibori happened in the period of Goodluck Jonathan as the nation’s
leader, which made the said trial very difficult for the prosecutors at the
time while recalling that the Federal Government had handed over recovered to
the governments of Bayelsa and Plateau which happened in a similar situation
similar to Ibori. It is his opinion that the nation’s 1999 constitution should
always take precedence over any such Memorandum of Understanding in the UK. It
is in furtherance, the view of Senior Advocate of Nigeria that any agreement
entered with Nigeria will have to be domesticated in Nigeria as stipulated by
the Nigerian constitution.
In the same vein, the nation’s
House of Representatives also lamentably frowned at the claim of the Federal
Government to the ownership of the recovered fund from the UK which they
believe should go to the Delta State Government, the source of the looted fund.
The lawmakers did not see any sense in spending the funds in projects unrelated
to the people of Delta State directly.
Away from the
perspective of the House of Representatives, it naturally makes sense that
money stolen from a particular people be returned to them. There seem no
reasons why the money belonging to Delta State be spent on other projects. The
claim that Delta State government said that no money was missing at the time or
did not prosecute Ibori does not hold water since neither the Federal nor Delta
State Government of the time prosecuted Ibori who was completely set free by
the Nigerian judiciary even when the matter was taken up by the Economic
Financial Crime Commission.
As Chukwudi Enebeli
posited in his final conclusion from a legal angle:
“The starting point in
analysing this issue, would be to identify the owner of the monies stolen and
siphoned by the ex-Governor. Indeed, it is the owner of the stolen monies that
is the victim of the theft, and is entitled to the repatriated funds. See:
David v Federal Republic of Nigeria (2018) LPELR-43677(CA)”.
As the Federal and
State Government argue on ownership of recovered Ibori loot, the Niger Delta
Development Union (NDDU) as reported by Onyekwere has filed a suited at the
Federal High Court, Asaba to restrain the Federal Government of Nigeria from
declaring itself sole ownership of the loot stolen from the State Government.
“Our action has been
filed at the Federal High Court, Asaba to challenge this unprovoked onslaught
and unrestrained belligerence against our constitution and the People of Delta
State,” Onyekwere and Osayande reported in The Guardian Newspaper.
By the failure of both
governments to prosecute him, both the Federal and State Government did not
think he stole any money unlike the UK, a foreign Government that swung into
action, prosecuting and sentencing the former Delta State Governor on account
of his corrupt practices.
Chief James Ibori was
the Governor of Delta State from 1999 to 2007 when the Economic and Financial Crime
Commission, on receiving petition from Delta State Elders and Stakeholders
Forum to prosecute him but they failed in the bid until he was arrested in the
UK, tried and sentenced by Southwark Crown Court in the country to 13 years
imprisonment which he served out.
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