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“He was never the legitimate governor and there was effectively a thief in government house. As the pretender of that public office, he was able to plunder Delta state’s wealth and hand out patronage”. Prosecution QC Sasha Wass (speaking about James Onanefe Ibori).
WHILE reporting James Ibori’s guilty plea to the 10-counts charge of money laundering and conspiracy to defraud, last week, in a London court, the BBC reminded that Ibori was “once seen as one of Nigeria’s wealthiest and most influential politicians”. At the height of his national influence, during the Yar’Adua administration, James Ibori formed a powerful duo with former Kwara state governor, BukolaSaraki.
James Ibori
Between them, they were responsible for some of the most high-profile appointments of the period; James Ibori was the inner caucus operative who largely financed the massive rigging of the 2007 elections which returned Umaru Yar’Adua as president, while his tag-team partner, Bukola Saraki, used as redoubt the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF), to post influence, in a manner that has never been witnessed before and since.
It was significant that the Ibori myth began to unravel, at the Kwara governor’s lodge in Abuja, where he had been holed up in his partner’s lair, before he was smoked out! His fate eventually took him around, like the character he was, until last week’s denouement of a guilty plea in London!
The media have posted incredible pictures of the luxury he purchased with stolen money, as he made transition from a petty thief in a London shop, to the heights of political power, in Nigeria. Andrew Walker, Nigerian analyst at the BBC, wrote a posting on the BBC website, on February 27th, titled: “James Ibori: How a thief almost became Nigeria’s president”.
It was not a flight of fancy, because at a point, the duo, came close to actualising the ambition, in the murky environments of a presidency locked into vicious political battle for survival, as the incumbent president slipped into a terminal battle with death.
It was estimated that the Ibori, stole about $250m from Delta state. Our indignation at the theft going on, especially in the states, where governors hold states in a bear hug, while milking them to stupor, should be tempered by a robust understanding of how we arrived at the sorry pass.
Unforgivable wrongs of military dictatorship
One of the most unforgivable wrongs of military dictatorship was the destruction of the political process through the uprooting of the organic basis of Nigeria’s political development.
The parties of independence had deficiencies, but the Action group (AG); National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) and the Northern People’s Congress (NPC), at least were rooted in the basic aspirations of the Nigerian people.
It was therefore no surprise that the period between 1958 and 1966, warts and all, has become a most romanticised phase of our national history.
The 1966 coup decapitated the leadership of mainly the Northern-based political elite, just as all the parties were banned following military takeover.
However, the organic roots of these parties were so strong, that when military rule ended in 1979, they were re-born in the new context. Leading lights of the Second Republic, 1979-1983, were directly out of the pages of the earlier era: Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Alhaji Shehu Shagari.
The military period of Babangida, will become a defining era in Nigerian history. Babangida introduced a Structural Adjustment Program (SAP), which wrought devastating changes on our national life. The main philosophy was removal of the state’s central role in economic development.
Opening up the economy is lauded as a major achievement, but the transformations in political economy instituted an uncaring society, which favoured the wily sharks and ‘smart’ individuals. Personalisation of state power and its disembodiment as an institution of compassion became the eternal essence of SAP. Marxist-Leninists remember that Lenin described politics as a concentrated expression of economics.
So the SAP era, naturally, created its own politics and politicians. Babangida introduced the concept of “Newbreed” politicians and in droves, those who made good in the shark-infested waters of SAP became the political champions of the new era. Because central to the purpose was the war against memory; the new must not have organic relationship with the old.
As a rootless breed of politicians, they depended on the structures nurtured by military dictatorship and in turn, they became caricatures of military dictatorship. This context aided MKO Abiola’s political ascendancy and its eventual truncation, by his erstwhile, military allies.
Era of the rootless Newbreed
Not much differentiated Abacha’s period from the Babangida era, politically. The ‘newbreed’ was still ascendant, even when older politicians eventually bunched up to provide some loci of opposition to the junta. The 1999 transition, merely consolidated the entrenchment of the ‘newbreed’, and many came with baggages!
Opening up the economy is lauded as a major achievement, but the transformations in political economy instituted an uncaring society, which favoured the wily sharks and ‘smart’ individuals. Personalisation of state power and its disembodiment as an institution of compassion became the eternal essence of SAP. Marxist-Leninists remember that Lenin described politics as a concentrated expression of economics.
So the SAP era, naturally, created its own politics and politicians. Babangida introduced the concept of “Newbreed” politicians and in droves, those who made good in the shark-infested waters of SAP became the political champions of the new era. Because central to the purpose was the war against memory; the new must not have organic relationship with the old.
As a rootless breed of politicians, they depended on the structures nurtured by military dictatorship and in turn, they became caricatures of military dictatorship. This context aided MKO Abiola’s political ascendancy and its eventual truncation, by his erstwhile, military allies.
Individuals personalise power to steal obscene sums of money, as part of the rituals of prebendalist politicking that has gone completely lunatic! This is the hallmark of the period since 1999.
Many of James Ibori’s contemporaries will no doubts, be very worried about what happened to the poster boy of looting; they couldn’t have slept easy in the past week, contemplating whether funds tucked away in off-shore havens might come to light or if mansions in Dubai, South Africa, London or the USA are someday brought into a loop of search for accountability. The James Ibori phenomenon is actually the story of our country today.
It is the most naked expression of the process that allowed thieves to takeover government houses. When Prosecution QC, Sasha Wass said of Ibori: “he was never the legitimate governor and there was effectively a thief in government house”, he literally, could have been describing many of the governors since 1999.
Most rode into government houses on the backs of fraudulent elections and they settled into power to fleece their states. This is the essence of the Ibori phenomenon, which haunts Nigerian politics today.
