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By Tony Eluemunor

Since 1999, controversy has trailed Chief James Onanefe Ibori’s actions as his name has been selling newspapers, though he has remained a reticent, private but effective political maneuverer and game changer.
And his staying power is intriguing; just when you think he is down and out, he is not only up but galloping away. He has hardly granted an interview in a decade, yet every step he takes causes a raucous discourse resulting, often, in faulty conclusions.

Take his relationship with His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, for instance. Many think it is a new found romance, unaware that it has been on since May 1999 when both became state Governors. Ibori came into office fighting for fiscal federalism, especially
Niger Delta rights and that his office should not be an appendage of
the President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s as Delta state is a
federating unit of the country.

In the South-South geo-political zone, only the late SDP
Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa State and Akwa-Ibom’s Dr Victor Attah and
Edo State’s Lucky Igbinedion shared Ibori’s views. On this, Ibori
found a soul mate in Lagos State’s then Governor Bola Tinubu. Thus,
when in 2004 Obasanjo invited the Governors to Abuja to get their
blessings as he just slapped a state of emergency rule on Plateau
state and suspended the Governor, Joshua Dariye, in vain did Ibori and
Tinubu attempt to rally all the governors to oppose Obasanjo’s action
as Northern Governors saw it through a regional prism; that the
upheaval in Plateau state which instigated the state of emergency
declaration was religious and pitched Plateau’s ethnic groups against
the Hausa/Fulani settlers. So, they backed Obasanjo. The Northern
Governors had held a meeting and the majority carried the vote.

Tinubu, then an Alliance for Democracy (AD) Governor issued a one-governor
statement condemning Obasanjo’s action. The intra-party collaboration
between Ibori and Tinubu in the service of true federalism continued
till their tenure expired. For instance, both of them immensely
supported Dr. Chris Ngige, former Anambra state Governor, when
Obasanjo tried several times to remove him from office. For a long
time Ngige spent his nights in Asaba for safety’s sake.

So, the moment Tinubu became a President-elect, he identified a friend
who has friends across the political parties who could buoy up his
administration. Thus, with the Independent National Electoral
Commission’s Certificate of Return as the winner of the 2023
presidential election, in his hand, Tinubu enplaned for Lagos. First,
he visited the Oba of Lagos and then Ibori, staying for hours and had
his dinner there.

I am citing this here to point out the faulty reports which that visit
elicited in the mass media; that Ibori visited Tinubu instead of the
other way round. Also, some media outfits illustrated that misreport
with a picture of Ibori and Tinubu snapped during the burial of Prince
Nduka Obaigbena’s mother in Agbor, as one taken during the visit under
reference. Such wrong reportages have often been visited on Ibori but
the public accepted them as truth.

Yes, Ibori visited Tinubu a few times before he was inaugurated
President without fanfare but the press magnified the one when Ibori
took former Governors, Nyesom Wike and Seyi Makinde of Rivers and Oyo
states, respectively, to the President in Aso Rock. Owing to this last
visit, many have called me to complain that Ibori had back-stabbed
former President Atiku Abubakar. On this, there are two issues.

The first is that if anyone back-stabbed the other, though
back-stabbing is a strong word and I have never heard Ibori complain
about Atiku, I will argue that Atiku could be said to have
back-stabbed Ibori. Please, pan back to January 2003. Obasanjo had
concluded plans to drop Atiku as his running-mate in his 2003
re-election bid. I was there when Obasanjo organized the “Obasanjo
Speaks” in April 2002 at the International Conference Centre, Abuja to
ignite his re-election bid and he never mentioned Atiku.  So the Atiku
faithful, led by Ibori, began a move; that if Obasanjo would not pair
up with Atiku, the then Vice-President could challenge his boss in the
2003 presidential election. There was a third option, to co-opt late
Dr. Alex Ekwueme, Vice-President to Shehu Shagari in the 1979 to ’83
Second Republic into the race and Atiku would be his side-kick. So,
After I broke the story (in Daily Independent) that
Ekwueme would contest against Obasanjo, Ekwueme waited until two weeks
to the PDP primary and national convention before he announced he was
in the race; he was waiting for Atiku’s position to be clear and to
take Obasanjo by surprise, too.

15 PDP Governors who were opposed to Obasanjo’s running as PDP flag
bearer had been led by the then PDP Chairman, Dr. Audu Ogbeh, to see
Obasanjo right inside the Aso Rock Villa. Ibori spoke for the group.
He told Obasanjo that owing to his non-democratic tendencies “you have
proved to be unmarketable, unsaleable and un-electable”, and it was in
the PDP’s interest to pick another presidential candidate. The Rubicon
had been crossed and the die fully cast. Turning back would be
suicidal. Obasanjo pleaded with the group to give him another chance
and promised to become more democratic and less authoritative but that
was in vain.

By the Wednesday before the Sunday, 5^th Monday and 6th January 2003
convention, the Ekwueme train was on course and with full force. When
the delegates had poured into Abuja by Thursday and they booed
Obasanjo wherever he went to campaign, he sought out Atiku on Thursday
night and pleaded for forgiveness.  He knelt down before some
Governors such as Uzor Orji Kalu, then of Abia state. He searched for
Ibori but he searched in vain; Ibori had left Delta State’s Lodge and
camped out in a hotel; only his Police ADC knew where he was and he
didn’t divulge that information. It was on Saturday morning that Ibori
heard that Atiku had forgiven Obasanjo and returned to his corner,
meaning that Ekwueme had lost the support of the PDP reformists; Ibori
was crest-fallen. He, who had led the campaign on Ekwueme/Atiku’s
behalf to clip Obasanjo’s wings, was neither consulted nor even
informed.

Ibori had hazarded himself like Achilles on the fields of Troy,
leading the fight visibly from the front, with little care for
personal safety like someone who knew no fear. There the Presidency
laid on the ground, having been knocked out from Obasanjo’s hand but
Atiku refused to pick it … and he did not allow Ekwueme to pick it
either. Atiku later explained to his aides that he did not want to
bite the hands that had fed him for Obasanjo invited him to be
Vice-President, even after he had won his own election to be Adamawa
State Governor – when he didn’t lobby for it. Atiku also didn’t expect
Obasanjo to plot evil against those who had given him a second chance
when he was on the ground, totally helpless. Also, Atiku was the
political power holding the PDP together by then, little did he know
that Obasanjo would destroy the party just to wrest power from the
Atikus and the Iboris. So, it was not really back-stabbing; which
involves treachery, pretentious as opposed to real friendship,
scheming, and downright malice. Atiku simply trusted Obasanjo and was
trenchantly fooled..

On the evening of the Thursday after the election, I phoned Ibori; he
was at the Abuja Airport preparing to leave for Asaba, through
Benin-City. I pleaded with him to wait for me and I sped like a mad
man to the Airport. I told him that I had picked up whisperings of a
plot to “deal with him” by denying him re-election. He thanked me but
betrayed no emotion whatsoever. Then he said he had remained in Abuja
since Monday to discuss with others to ensure that Ekwueme would not
be disgraced. “Bye, Tony”, he said and I watched him leave. I marveled
at his self-confidence.

Yet, in truth, Ibori paid dearly for supporting the Ekwueme/Atiku
cause in 2003. Two weeks after that convention, a story broke; Ibori
had been accused of being an ex-convict who was convicted for
“criminal negligence” for allowing workers under him to steal building
materials at Lower Usuma Dam. Yet, otherwise respectable journalists
still write that Ibori was tried for stealing. The building allegedly
being constructed has not been named. If it was the Abuja Lower Usuma
Dam, then that would be outrageous for that dam was completed in 1986,
yet, it was claimed that the dam was still being constructed in 1995 and
Ibori was a subcontractor there. It is factual that Abuja started
getting water from that dam in 1988 but journalists on destructive
missions care little about historical records.

Yes, when Ibori congratulated Obasanjo on his re-election, Obasanjo
replied: “James, you said I was unmarketable, unsalable and
unelectable. All your life I will make you unmarketable, unsalable and
unelectable”. Since then Ibori has not been allowed to know peace. But
Ibori should thank God for little mercies; A.K Dikibo the South-South
PDP Vice-National Chairman who had started campaigning to become
National Chairman in 2007 was assassinated and Alamieyeseigha, another
Atiku supporter was also murdered – by being denied adequate medical
treatment as Ribadu incarcerated him in an attempt to get him make a
(guilty) plea bargain.

A lucky Ibori escaped to Dubai, running for his dear life. The public
remembers that in April 2010, President Goodluck Jonathan declared
Ibori wanted, “dead or alive”. But it was when a plot was on to link
Ibori into a phantom coup plot that he believed that “Caution is
preferable to rash bravery” as said by Falstaff in King Henry the
Fourth play, Part One, by William Shakespeare, now often rendered as
“Discretion is the better part of valour”. Yes, the former National
Security Adviser Andrew Owoye Azazi, who with Governor Patrick Yakowa
of Kaduna State died in a helicopter crash, had with Paul Dike, Chief
of Defence Staff, gone to report to General Dambazau, who then headed
the Nigerian Army that Ibori was organizing a coup. Dambauzau told
Azazi that he had headed the Nigerian Army and thus knew that Ibori, a
civilian would not know the sort of troops or arms needed for any
military operation and that if they wanted Ibori dead, they should
know ways to do it other than involving the military in a phantom coup
mess as the Nigerian Armed Forces had yet to recover from the phantom
coup mess made in the General Sani Abacha era. When Ibori got wind of the
scheme to rope him into a coup plot, he escaped from Nigeria and made no
serious attempt to hide once he arrived in Dubai.

The ex-convict allegation was designed to get the PDP to stop Ibori from
re-contesting for office. Though I unearthed the late Shuaibu Anyebe,
whom a Bwari Upper Area Court had convicted because a N10, 000 worth
of bundle of zinc got lost under the man’s watch (he was a night
watchman at Kogo Village Abattoir), ferreted out the receipt of the
fine he paid in lieu of going to jail, and I served the public Mr.
Moses Ushafa’s (the Bwari Area Council’s head of administration)
authentication of the fact that he reported Anyebe to that court and
was convicted, the journalists pinned the allegation squarely against
Ibori. Not even after Segun Adeniyi and Cletus Akwaya interviewed
Anyebe for THISDAY and saw that receipt, did the story change; neither
Adeniyi or any of his friends such as Azu Ishiekwene, Simeon Kolowale
and Waziri Adio ever mentioned it in their write ups. Never!

That allegation that Ibori was convicted for “criminal negligence” for
allowing workers under him to steal “zinc asbestos” (which is
non-existent in the entire world) worth “110, 000,000” remains
laughable. That the sum would have fetched some 55, 000 bundles of
zinc roofing sheets at the 1995 rate of N2, 000 per bundle, did not
give journalists a second thought, just as the idea of roofing the
Lower Usuma Dam would have been outrageous because dams are never
roofed. How could 55,000 bundles of zinc have been stolen in a day?
Yet, an anti-Ibori witness said he used a pay-loader to stuff all that
zinc and some iron rods, too, into an almighty trailer.

When that Bwari court ex-convict allegation failed, Ibori’s travails
for being active in Atiku’s corner took a new turn, this time
championed by Nuhu Ribadu-led Economic and Financial Crimes Commission
(EFCC) and ending in Ibori’s conviction in London. This brings us,
naturally, to Ribadu, who was mentioned in a recent report as lobbying
Ibori to help him get President Tinubu to appoint him the National
Security Adviser. All the publishers of that story added as
background, that Ribadu got Ibori jailed for corruption.

No, corruption was not the reason; Obasanjo used Ribadu and the EFCC
to actualize his political persecution against Ibori. You may ask why
a London court found Ibori guilty if he wasn’t corrupt. My answer: a
truly criminal case is supposed to be tried and proved beyond
reasonable doubt but Ibori’s conviction was based on INFERENCE and
INFERENCE alone. The monies that flowed into Barclays Bank in England
from Ibori’s MER Engineering, for instance, was termed laundry of
tainted money, though Ibori had proof that the company contracted out
those four ship houses.

As proof, I give you a Financial Times of London report written by
Michael Peel and Dino Mahtani on November 16, 2007, titled “Probe into
Chevron and Shell payments.” “Anti-corruption investigators are
probing payments by ChevronTexaco and Royal Dutch Shell to a company
owned by a powerful Nigerian politician they suspect has laundered
tens of millions of dollars in British banks, property and cars. A UK
court affidavit seen by the Financial Times says there is reasonable
cause to believe Mr Ibori bled money from his oil-rich state and
bought assets including a $20m jet, houses in London and Dorset, and a
€406,000 ($595,460) armour-plated Mercedes-Benz from a Mayfair
dealership.

“The affidavit says the “purportedly legitimate” payments were for the
rental of two houseboats for oil workers, although it suspects the
transfers were “corrupt payments rather than in exchange for
legitimate services”.

“Nuhu Ribadu, chairman of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission, which has worked closely with the British investigators,
told the FT he was “investigating huge payments made by Shell and
Chevron to MER Engineering” over the hiring of the houseboats. Chevron
confirmed it had hired two houseboats from MER, but declined to give
more details. It said it believed it had complied with anti-corruption
laws. Shell said MER was on its register of approved contractors. It
declined to elaborate on the amount and type of work done by MER. NNPC
said it never paid bribes”.

Yes, the company hired out boat houses to those companies, yet, Ibori
was forced to plead guilty. And Ibori had no private jet despite the
song and dance Sahara Reporters, London-based Financial Times, the
EFCC and the global media made of private jet – an attention-grabber.

Yet, some have asked how Ibori could be on speaking terms with Ribadu?
My reply: Ibori has already forgiven all those who railroaded him into
jail. When Senator Akpor Pius Ewherido died in 2013, Ibori from a
London prison, asked Mr. Solo Udele, his former ADC and I to send a
condolence letter to the Ewherido family. Once we got to the house,
wailing broke out everywhere. “From Ibori again”? Yes, I heard that
with my own ears! The late Senator was one of the two persons who
wrote a petition against Ibori, handed it over to Chief E. K Clarke
who took it to Obasanjo and who called Ribadu to collect it and add to
the arsenal trained against Ibori. Yet, when the Senator became
critically ill, Ibori phoned the family to send their son abroad for
advanced health care.  When the National said only an Air Ambulance
could suitably move him, Ibori helped to arrange for one to air-lift
the man to Germany.  I don’t know whether the then Gov. Dr. Emmanuel
Uduaghan, approved for Delta State Government to pay for the aircraft
or Ibori personally did, but as the Air Ambulance was landing at
Abuja, Ewherido died.

Lesson: Ibori forgave Ribadu long ago. He has no enemy list. But
President Tinubu should read these words I have borrowed from Mr.
Chidi Anthony Okpara, who in turn took them from what one Aminu
Muhammed wrote on Facebook in 2019: “In September 2006, then EFCC
Chairman, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu appeared before the Senate on a report
the agency had just released then. He clearly mentioned five Governors
as the worst thieving Governors.

1. Orji Uzor Kalu: I remember how he said the Governor was number one
not because it is number one alphabetically but, because he had one of
the biggest established cases of stealing, money laundering and
diversion of funds.

2. Ahmed Bola Tinubu: I remember how he specially narrated the wicked
stealing patterns of the then Governor of Lagos State whom he said his
own stealing had an international dimension to it. He berated Tinubu
then for being a big thief. Prof. Yemi Osinbajo was his Commissioner
of Justice and Attorney General then and I can’t remember if they sued
EFCC or Ribadu for those expressions/exposures beside the press
statement of not being surprised by Mr. Dele Alake, Tinubu’s then
Commissioner for Information and Strategy.

3. Ahmed Sani Yerima: I remember clearly how he also stated that the
then Governor of Zamfara State was one of the worst cases because in
Ribadu’s words, the man was fingered as being involved in direct
stealing of state funds. He summarized the Governor’s stealing as a
tragedy.

4. George Akume: He said Akume was not just a thief but a heartless
one who even physically beat up the commission’s operatives in the
office of the state Commissioner of Police while he tried to recover
some incriminating files against him from the operatives.

5. Abdullahi Adamu: Ribadu told the Senators that a case had been
established against the Governor whom he said had personalized both
the state treasury and the accounts of Local Governments. He said the
accusations against the Governor were massive.

Ironically, all the five plus Nuhu Ribadu are very active and
influential members of the APC”.

Then, year 2023 rolled in and today Tinubu is Nigeria’s President,
Adamu is APC’s National President, while Kalu is a front-runner in the
Senate Presidency race. Akume is the Secretary to the Government of
the Federation. If Tinubu appoints Ribadu as NSA, would he not be
approving his past decisions as EFCC chairman, including his
indictment of 33 Governors including himself, a self-indictment? And
would he not be injecting bad blood into the highest echelons of his
administration in which some of those Governors, including Tinubu, now
play leading roles? How could Ribadu and those who believe he accused
them wrongly, work seamlessly together? Ribadu could be useful,
though, if Tinubu wants somebody to do some dirty work against his
opponents.

Yet, how bright is Ribadu’s real, as opposed to fake, track record?
Why did he tarnish 33 Governors of the 1999-2007 class, including
Tinubu, as hopelessly corrupt?  And why did late President Umaru
Yar’Adua “dethrone” him from the EFCC high seat? Well, Ribadu’s best
friend and grand collaborator has given the answer: Ribadu had moved
against Yar’Adua, on trumped up charges, as El-Rufai informed us in
his book, “Accidental Public Servant” that Ribadu dreamt up charges
against Yar’Adua and began to arrest Yar’Adua’s Katsina state
Commissioners. Yar’Adua had visited Ribadu and told him that Obasanjo
had asked him to contest the 2007 presidential election and Ribadu
dismissed him outright; “Nasir el-Rufai is my candidate”. El-Rufai
told Ribadu: (page 359) “You want me to be President because I am your
friend, not because you think I am quite different or better than
Yar’Adua”. El-Rufai added in that book (because of Ribadu’s actions
against Yar’Adua) “things have really gone bad for me and all of us”.
In fact, El-Rufai’s title for that section of the book is telling:
“Umaru Asks Nuhu For Support; The Beginning of Our Problems”. So,
Yar’Adua removed Ribadu as EFCC chairman because he judged him too
corrupt for that office as he engaged in political persecution dressed
up as fights against corruption.

Yet, in two different books: “My Story; My Vision” by Ribadu himself
and in Wale Adebanwi’s “A Paradise for Maggots”, Ribadu never
mentioned his quixotic actions against Yar’Adua and the repercussions
against him and friends. Instead, he claimed that he was fighting
corruption and Yar’Adua went after him after he arrested Yar’Adua’s
friend; Ibori. And Nigerians, not seeing through his lies, gave him
their blind support. You could also read through Azubuike Ishiekwene’s
“The Trial of Nuhu Ribadu” and you would never know that Ribadu acted
corruptly against Yar’Adua and so Yar’Adua had the most cogent reasons
for not wanting Ribadu as EFCC head.

Yet, do I marvel why Ribadu has not “denied” that he is desperately
lobbying Ibori to help him lobby President Tinubu to make him NSA. Or
has he forgotten an item Premium Times published September 24, 2013:
“Ribadu lambasts Okiro, describes ex-IGP as corrupt, “shameless liar’”

“He said it was the same “shameless method of desperate lobbying” that
the former IGP (Mike Okiro), whom he described as “a chronic political
jobber and sycophant of the first order”, used in securing
appointments as Chief Security Officer to the National Chairman of the
Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and later as Chairman of the Police
Service Commission, PSC. The former EFCC boss, a retired Assistant
Inspector General of Police, AIG, had told a London court that Mr.
Ibori was instrumental to Mr. Okiro’s appointment as IGP, a claim Mr.
Okiro debunked, accusing the former EFCC boss of falsehood”.

Hey, why would anybody even lobby Ibori at all, a PDP kingpin for an
appointment in an APC administration? Some have asked me if Ibori
would jump ship and join the APC. Such questions poured in after the
immediate past Governor of Delta state, and PDP’s Vice-Presidential
candidate in the 2023 election explained the political disagreement
between him and Ibori over the 2023 Delta state PDP governorship
candidate. Okowa said he refused to support Ibori’s candidate, David
Edevbie, because Edevbie betrayed him personally in 2011 when he
disrespected the state’s agreed upon zoning formula and he, an Urhobo,
attempted to become Governor when it was Anioma people’s turn. That
was after Edevbie had also given Okowa his word that he would not join
in that governorship race.

Before I state what I learnt from personal investigations, I think it
is necessary to say that the last time I sat with Ibori was during my
wife’s funeral on November 17th 2022. Since then, like the “nice man”
he is, he has let me be and mourn my loss and as he advised, “learn to
play the role of father and mother at the same time. Learn to calm
yourself and be gentle with yourself. Don’t think too much; remember
the health implications”.  We have communicated on the phone but as
fate would have it, we have not spoken since May and he even had to
write and sign his press statement when Chief Raymond Dokpesi died. I
have been trying to stir, return fully to my work, plotting how to
finish the books I have been  writing, but I’m not there yet. For Edevbie,
the last time he phoned me was on the day I submitted his C.V at the
Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), for
his appointment as late President Yar’Adua’s Personal Private
Secretary in 2007 or 2008. Neither he nor Okowa called when my wife
died.

Did Ibori support Okowa’s bid to be Governor of Delta state? That is
not in doubt. He did it against the wishes of the incumbent Governor
Emmanuel Uduaghan because Okowa had been anointed by the Anioma
people. Anioma traditional leaders, after a meeting at the Asagba of
Asaba’s palace, sent a Dan Okenyi-led delegation to Ibori in London to
stress that Okowa was Anioma’s choice. Ibori pledged his support and
didn’t break it. In April 2022, Urhobo people of Delta Central also
adopted Edevie. In a communique issued on Sunday, April 17, the
supreme governing body of Urhobo nation, Urhobo Progressive Union, and
signed by Olorogun (Dr.) Moses Oghenerume Taiga, President-General,
Chief Capt. (Dr.) Anthony Onoharigho, 1st Deputy President-General,
Chief Godwin Notoma, Chairman, Forum of Presidents-General of the 24
Urhobo Kingdoms, Dame Chief (Mrs.) Christy Siakpere, President, UPU
Women Wing and Comrade Ovie Ebireri, President, UPU Youth Wing, UPU
stressed that insistence on Edevbie.

The UPU also apologised and pleaded with Governor Ifeanyi Okowa to
forgive Edevbie for any wrong for which he may have been angry with
him and allow the Urhobo nation to present their best and preferred
choice in the overall interest of the development of the state. That
sealed the choice for Ibori who had nothing personal against Hon
Sheriff Oborevwori Governor of Delta State, Okowa’s candidate, who is
now His Excellency, the Delta state Governor.

As Okowa explained recently, Edevbie had betrayed him in 2011 by
contesting when it was Anioma’s turn and so lost the right to benefit
from the rotation agreement. On this I learnt that in 2011 when
Uduaghan showed signs that he would not support Okowa, Edevbie and
several others from Delta North and other senatorial zones were
encouraged by the state’s Ibori political group, of which Okowa was a
top member, to pick nomination forms and begin to campaign so that he
and the others could build up bases that could later be solidified
into one – to benefit Okowa. Udughan’s blessings were with the late
Tony Obuh. When even Anioma people stoutly opposed Obuh, Uduaghan
turned his support to Edevbie and a surprised Edevbie told the Ibori
political family he was ready to announce his support for Okowa, Ibori
advised him not to do so as that would destroy his political career
but that he, Ibori would handle that matter at the right time.

Ibori then tasked Hon Monday Igbuya, a former Speaker of the Delta
House of Assembly and Hon Evelyn Oboro of the House of Representatives
to secure Sapele and Uvwie respectively for Okowa while Ibori secured
his Ethiope East and Ethiope West even from London. At the Asaba
Cenotaph convention venue, Ibori telephoned Igbuya who one by one
handed over the telephone to the Ibori’s political family leaders in
the various LGAs and Ibori told them personally to ask their delegates
to vote for Okowa…and Okowa won.

So, just as Ibori supported Anioma’s choice in 2015, he supported
Urhoboland’s choice in 2023. To him, Okowa was right in opposing
Uduaghan’s insistence on choosing a candidate for the Anioma people
and Ibori opposed Okowa’s insistence on choosing for Urhobo people.
Finish! I dream of one fine tomorrow when Ibori, Uduaghan, Okowa,
Oborevwori, Edevbie and other Delta leaders would gather amicably to
discuss matters affecting Delta state for there is great lesson in
this saying concerning a fight that tears apart a once vigorous group:
“you win, I win, but we l –o-s-e.”