Delta State Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, yesterday broke his silence on the return of a former governor of the state, Chief James Ibori, from a London jail to the state. The former governor arrived Oghara, his hometown, after serving a concurrent 13-year jail term for money laundering. Since his arrival last week Saturday, Governor Okowa had not made any policy statement concerning him.
But reacting to speculation that the former helmsman may defect to the All Progressives Congress (APC) so as to receive presidential pardon during his quarterly media interaction at the Government House, Asaba, yesterday, Okowa disassociated himself from the rumour. According to him, Ibori should be bothered about reunion with the family left behind during his imprisonment, rather than meddling in the murky waters of politics.
He said: “I am not aware of Ibori’s planned defection to the APC. Yes, he is back with us but I think what he should be concerned about is how to reunite with his family and not politics.” The governor debunked his alleged sour relationship with his predecessor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, wondering why mischiefmakers were bent on causing disaffection between them.
He said: “No love lost between me and the immediate past governor of Delta State. Even, I have maintained my relationship with the Edo State Governor. Politics cannot divide us.
It is time for governance and we relate as the need arises.” He thanked the media for being patient with his administration despite the economic recession, promising not to fail to deliver on the mandate that produced him.
Meanwhile, the Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership (CACOL) yesterday described the ‘euphoria’ that greeted Ibori’s return to Nigeria last week as a show of shame that debases humanity. CACOL in a statement issued by its Executive Chairman, Debo Adeniran, said: “It is sad and disheartening to see human beings so audaciously being ripped of their humanism; the very basis of their existence, out of the ‘inadvertent’ need to cope with the socio-economic and political reality of the society imposed by the incurably corrupt ruling class elements like Ibori.
“It is like the hunted protecting the hunter; victims celebrating their victimisers out of total dislocation with the empirical reality of their social existence and proper introspection.
“We are talking about an ex-convict that has through his nefarious and corrupt activities dragged the image of the country as a whole in the mud of global shame. Ibori, we believe, is one of those who inspired the infamous statement of the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron that described Nigeria as a country that is ‘fantastically’ corrupt.”
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