By Donaldson Ugwu
There are several reports in the media recently that former Governor of Delta State, Chief James Ibori, may come back home to Nigeria soon after he has served his jail term in the United Kingdom where he was sentenced to jail for alleged money laundry charges.
For some of us who are not from Delta State, we see the Odidigborigbo’s home coming as a welcome development so that he (Ibori) can once again contribute his quota to the re-engineering of his state in particular and Nigeria in general.
As a full-blooded Nigerian, he has all the rights like any other Nigerian to come back to his father’s land to help build it up without molestation.
I make bold to say that he should not be molested or harassed by his political enemies, and they most be many, because Ibori has reportedly filed a case in the British courts to upturn his sentence because it was based on alleged fraud (fraud is not peculiar to Nigeria).
Even though it has not been established that the conviction was based on fraudulent charges, those of us who are ardent followers of Nigerian politics know that powerful political enemies set up Ibori in the first instance to eclipse his rising political profile during the period of the Musa Yar’ Adua presidency.
That Ibori was chased out and had to flee the country in the most disgraceful manner seemed not to have satisfied his traducers. The enemies then had to muster the instruments of the state to hound Ibori abroad and used the most crooked and foul means to secure his conviction in a foreign land. It is a pity how Nigeria and Nigerians destroy their own.
I am not a supporter of fraud or evil. Far from it. I also do not subscribe to the notion that many political actors in Nigeria today did worse things than Ibori was alleged to have committed.
If any government (or private citizen) is found to have committed ofence against the state, he/she should be accordingly punished. But wasn’t Ibori found not guilty before the Nigerian courts? If the state had not manipulated the London courts, would Ibori have been found guilty?
Now, the stories making the rounds in Nigeria again are that the enemies (in Ibori’s home state and Nigeria at large) are regrouping to do the man in for a second time because of perceived fear that he (Ibori) is capable of upsetting the apple cart on arrival.
As such, the main preoccupation of these people is to stop Ibori or destroy him completely. What a pity if this is true.
I will counsel such people to face their other problems and leave the man alone whenever he comes back. One thing you cannot take away from Ibori is that he has the capability and capacity to galvanize people for development.
I saw this at close range when I served in Delta State during Ibori’s tenure as governor. Instead of planning to
destroy him, such people should court him to come back to contribute his quota to the development of the country.
His energy should be harnessed for development. Enough of distractions.
Ugwu, self-employed and wrote from Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
