Former Delta State governor, Chief James Ibori, replied Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Mr. Abubakar Malami, SAN, who was quoted to have said about 6.9 million British Pounds Sterling was being expected as Ibori loot.
Malami, on Tuesday, disclosed plans by the Federal Government to engage acclaimed consultants in its bid to recover another $750m looted and stashed away by a former Head of State, the late Gen. Sani Abacha.
He stated that another £6.9m loot, held by a former Governor of Delta State, Mr. James Ibori, would also be recovered.
The minister spoke when he met with the House of Representatives Committee on Justice.
But Ibori in a statement by Mr. Tony Eluemunor, his Media Assistant, said “There is no Ibori loot anywhere in the world. Such money, whether in British pounds, American dollars or the Nigerian naira just does not exist. This is because the Ibori London trial is not yet over. It is an incontrovertible fact that the confiscation hearing has not started at all, and remains months away into the future.
“This makes it disappointing that a high official of state such as the Attorney-General may have been misled into believing that an Ibori loot not only exists anywhere, but he even put a figure (6.9 million pounds) to it.
“With all due respect to the Minister and the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, it is curious that such a misleading statement could have come less than a week that dozens of well-respected foreign media organisations, including the British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC, The Times of London, The Guardian of London, and a host of Nigerian news outlets reported that the case against Ibori and his associates have become shaky as some operatives of the London Metropolitan Police have been accused of bribery and corruption in the course of their investigations. Thus, at the January 21, 2016 hearing, the prosecution was forced to withdraw its case against one of Ibori’s counsel, Mr. Bradesh Gohil.
“It had charged Gohil of leaking fabricated documents to media organisations and members of (British) Parliament, but Gohil turned the case against the Police, accusing them of misleading the court with tainted evidence from corrupt operatives and of withholding key documents which could have proved police corruption.”
Eluemunor said his intial reaction was to assume that the Minister might have been misquoted, adding that it was only when he failed to retract the statement after 24 hours that he decided to give Nigerians the true perspective of the Ibori London trial.
According to him, the so called “Ibori Loot” Mr. Abubakar Malami saw as a “low hanging fruit ripe for plucking” must have been a terrible mirage.
“This has done nothing though to affect in any way, the high regard Chief Ibori and his Media Office have for President Buhari, his administration and ministers, including the Justice Minister, Mr. Malami. Chief Ibori wishes them well in their stated bid to leave a better Nigeria than they found it.”
