Date Published: 01/06/10

Gaffe In Ibori Verdict: The Judge Or EFCC? By Idris Alazua

To most Nigerians, the verdict of the Federal High Court in Asaba on the money laundering charges against the former Delta state governor, James Ibori was as expected. The outrage that followed the ruling which most people described as murder of justice was equally expected. However, the real issues or rather blunders seem to be missed by comments and criticisms on the perceived miscarriage of justice by the court.

A look at the judgment clearly show that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) laid the grounds for Ibori’s case to fail by deliberately mispackaging the charges and the near-zero witnesses’ testimonies. And if critics say this was where the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) Micheal Aondoakaa played –in to save his friend Ibori, I will completely agree with them. The AGF had been serially accused of complicity in paid manipulation of justice ranging from election- related cases to government contracts amongst others and I quite agreed with such allegations judging by the man’s pronouncements and conduct. But on this particular Ibori case in Asaba, the blame should go to where it rightly belongs.

There was actually no need for anybody to have thrown away huge sums of money to influence the Judge as the counsel to the accused must have earlier in the course of the case established that the EFCC had no case against Ibori as  a result of the commission’s ineptness.

Cases of fraud are not easy to prove because these government thieves know how to circumvent the existing check-systems. Elsewhere in serious-minded societies, anti-graft agencies spend years to build their cases such that when they go to court they will have incontrovertible evidence to show that fraud or laundering actually took place. But in our setting those saddled with the responsibility of fighting corruption are neck deep in the same act either by direct practice or unholy association/closeness with the looters they are supposed to chase and collect our money back. It is a very pathetic situation.

Judges, especially the few remaining vestiges of incorruptible ones, are not influenced by sentiments or by the mass media. They look at the substance of cases brought before them, submissions of lawyers- prosecutors and defendants and then rule base on facts before them especially those that were adequately proved to be tangible or otherwise.

The Judge was very right when in the ruling he  accused the EFCC of not providing evidence to back the voluminous charges saying that his court will not deliver verdict based on public opinion but will rely on evidence presented in his court.

It was obvious that the Judge hinged his ruling mainly on the fact that the prosecutor, the EFCC failed to prove the 170 charges against Ibori either by way of evidence or witness testimonies. As observed, the case was never really tried in real terms. And as the defence counsel successfully argued, the case as filed by EFCC did not merit a trial because there was not enough evidence or witness statement to support the allegations contained in the charge sheet.

The fact that Ibori's administration squandered billions of dollars of Delta State money is obvious especially to those of us from Delta. However, verbal assertion or mere perception alone is not enough to send him to jail or ask for refund. The anti-graft agency must be able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Ibori actually stole those billions.

The Judge was very correct when he insisted that money transfer in itself does not constitute a crime. According to him, for the transfer of money to be considered a crime, the money has to be proceeds of crime, meaning that the said money must have been derived from the conduct of criminal activities. In this, the prosecutor failed to show any criminal conduct by the accused other than the fact the he transferred money. Of course, almost everybody in Delta state know that the money came from the state government coffer but sentiments alone is not enough to prove a point in the court of law except we want to apply the ‘Okija legal system.’

The anti-graft agency alleged that the accused (Ibori) refused to take plea and instead raised objections to the charges. “It is important to note that the matter was not tried; no evidence was led or taken by the court. The ruling was based merely on charges and proof of evidence.”

However, contrary to the claims by the EFCC, it was clear that the commission had neither witnesses nor evidence in real terms to prove their case. As reported, the only statement they had was by Nuhu Ribadu (former EFCC boss) that Andy Uba offered him a $15 million bribe on behalf of Ibori. The interesting aspect of this allegation was that the Commission did not deem it necessary to invite Uba to make a statement on his involvement on the allegation.

The EFCC accused Ibori of money laundering, procuring somebody to open an illegal account and in all the charges, not one account was specifically mentioned. If you say that someone illegally opened an account with a Bank, you must quote the bank and the account number for ease of reference and verifiability. They did not do that.

Despite how any person may want to see it, the truth is that the Judge in the Asaba Court actually did a very good job at least to set precedent and tell Nigerians especially those incharge of government agencies that we have for so long as a people taken for granted or rather outrightly neglected investigative finesse in fraud and corruption cases against government officials. Ibori can still be nailed but on a fresh round of well-packaged and informed charges not on this money laundering issue as the EFCC has boggled a good opportunity to bring the former governor to book.

Except a thorough investigation is carried out on Ibori’s tenure and fresh charges pressed against him, the EFCC’s planned appeal will also fail because he who asserts must prove and since the anti-graft commission has shown that its assertions were vacous either by design or outright omission it cannot at any future time try to change its ‘story..’ This is pathetic and represents a double tragedy for the robbed and deprived people of Delta state.

IDRIS ALAZUA LIVES IN KADUNA (alazua3000@yahoo.com)