Mr Ibori walks

Thursday December 17, 2009 was a busy day for the courts.

The Supreme Court delivered judgement in the Soludo case,

vacating the Court of Appeal order restraining the Independent National

Electoral Commission from recognising Mr. Soludo as the candidate of the

Peoples Democratic Party in the 2010 Anambra gubernatorial elections. Also on

that day the Lagos division of the Court of Appeal denied the application of

Mr. Bode George and the five others convicted alongside him for corruption at

the Nigerian Ports Authority.

But the ‘pronouncement of the day’ was that of the Asaba Federal

High Court clearing former Delta State governor James Ibori of all the 170

charges of corruption filed against him in 2007 by the Economic and Financial

Crimes Commission.

We wouldn’t be totally honest if we said we were surprised by

this ruling. The signs of this travesty of a judgement had always been there.

The case kicked off two years ago at the Federal High Court in Kaduna,but on

Mr. Ibori’s insistence that he be tried in a court close to where he was

alleged to have committed the crimes (Delta State, which he ruled for eight

years), a new High Court was created for him in Asaba.

From this point it wasn’t difficult to tell where the case was

headed. The December 17 judgement was therefore merely the next unfolding of a

case firmly settled in the tight grip of a man who arguably fights criminal

charges for a living.Marcel Awokulehin, the Judge at the centre of this, the

latest in a series of bizarre judgements, has certainly earned his place on the

list of Judges whom the Nigerian judiciary would be better off without. In his

ruling he said that there was no clear evidence with which to convict the

former Governor, arguing that money transfer (which Mr. Ibori was implicated

in) does not automatically imply an intent to launder money. But what the Judge

conveniently chose to ignore was how in the first place Mr. Ibori came to be in

possession of the huge sums of money allegedly transferred, and how in sane

climes the possession of such sums would by itself be incontrovertible evidence

of corruption.

In April 2007 Ibori offered Mr. Nuhu Ribadu, then Chairman of

the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, a bribe of US$15 million (N2.25

billion), in cash. Taking into consideration Mr. Ibori’s annual basic salary at

that time (about 2.5 million naira), it would have taken him close to a

thousand years as Governor to amass US$15 million.

Yet this was only a bribe. There had to be more where that came

from. Where did Mr. Ibori get all that money? What businesses is he involved

in? Clearly he has come a long way, for a man who started out as a credit card

fraudster two decades ago in England, as court papers show (he was actually

convicted of this in the early 90s).

In a deposition made to the London Metropolitan Police a few

months ago, Mr. Ribadu described Mr. Ibori as a “very powerful and influential

figure in Nigeria.” This power, earned as two-term Governor of one of Nigeria’s

richest states, as well as a leading financier of the Yar’Adua 2006/2007

presidential campaign, has obviously placed Mr. Ibori in good stead to cover

his tracks, no matter how large or obvious they might be. And they are obvious.

The EFCC has promised to appeal Awokulehin’s disgraceful

judgement; and the country is left hoping that Mr. Ibori does not decide to get

a special Court of Appeal created for this purpose. For it is clear that this

is a man who will go to any length to put the law to shame.

As the case goes to the Appeal Court, we call on the Nigerian

judiciary to please rise to the occasion, and convince us that there are still

men and women within their ranks willing and eager to rise above dubious logic

and twisted arguments. This case needs Justices who are still in the business

of handing out true justice.