Outrage in UK over Ibori’s release

Britons are furious with their courts for letting former Delta State governor, James Ibori, go on a free.



They cannot understand why he was freed without parting with even a fraction of the £18million public money he stole while in office.

The outrage followed the insistence , on the same day Ibori was released from jail, by another court that a Sergeant Alexander Blackman must spend Christmas in jail even after winning right to appeal murder conviction for killing a Taliban fighter.

Plan by the federal government to prefer fresh charges against Ibori on his return home is already dividing opinions in Delta State which he governed between 1999 and 2007.

The Daily Mail of London, which has been doing extensive stories on the Ibori saga said critics described the contrast between the former governor’s and Blackman’s cases – both heard at London’s Royal Courts of Justice – as a perversion of justice.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd had tried to keep Ibori locked up until he had handed back at least £18million of the proceeds of his crimes. But the High Court ruled this was an abuse of her powers and ordered Ibori to be freed.

It quoted thriller writer Frederick Forsyth,a confidant of the late Chief Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, who campaigns for justice for Sergeant Blackman, as saying: “A brave Marine sergeant who fought for his country is cruelly kept behind bars, away from his family at Christmas, while a Nigerian fraudster who is refusing to give up his stolen money is let free half way through his sentence.”