Contrary to touted claim that he was deported, the former governor of Delta State, James Onanefe Ibori who returned to Nigeria last Saturday from London, United Kingdom, where he served a jail term for money laundering, says he was not deported. In a press statement today by his media assistant, Tony Eluemunor, Ibori also clarified that he has no Twitter Account. He was reacting to a Twitter handle in his name (@ChiefIbori), with his picture too, which had been trending on the internet since Sunday, the after his return to the country.
He said his media office immediately reached out to some journalists to warn Nigerians not to fall victim to the fraudster who created that Twitter Account for whatever reason. According to him, “we can only suspect that a confidence trickster must have created that account to lure incredulous Nigerians into a 419 trap”.
James Ibori
Ibori, therefore, pleaded with the general public to disregard that account and to stop assessing the Twitter handle over matters or discussions affecting him as he neither nor those working for him created that Twitter handles or has ever commented on it. Eluemunor said the Twitter administrators have been advised to shut down the account, adding that whenever Ibori saw the need to create a Twitter account, the public would be so advised.
On his alleged deportation as peddled in some news reports, Ibori explained that “even though he had not wanted to publicize his return to Nigeria so that wrong meaning would not be read into it due to the public interest he knew his presence in Nigeria would elicit; “and also because I never wanted any crowd that would gather because of me to disturb a single Nigerian in the course of their duties, all my efforts to keep the trip secret failed”. The former governor posited that “the airline that brought me into Nigeria is public knowledge; so too, my disembarkation airport”.
He said it would be easy to verify that he was not deported because the deporting country’s officials would always hand over deportees to Nigerian Immigration officials and documents would also be exchanged. According to him, “those who have chosen to report lies, and claim that I was deported know that no document exists anywhere in the world to back up those malicious claims”, adding that a record of documented letters between his solicitors and the British Home office exists which proves beyond all reasonable doubts that he was granted leave to exit Britain “voluntarily”. Ibori said he had announced, as was reported by both the Reuters and the BBC, and several Nigerian news outlets that he would return to Nigeria in a matter of days.
The statement said he did not announce the exact day in order to avoid a situation that would result in crowd-control challenges for the security services, adding that moreover, on Tuesday, January 31, he had confirmed in his last court appearance in Britain that he would appeal his conviction “because the trial was riddled with corruption and other reasons”. He said the court could not fix a date for confiscation hearing in deference to his impending appeal, and so adjourned hearing till March 17. “So the confiscation hearing will not start till after the appeal against Ibori’s conviction. This remains one of Ibori’s greatest victories since the London case started. Ibori’s Counsel requested for the adjournment in the hope that the appeal would have been filed before 17th March, thereby putting the confiscation hearing on hold”, Eluemunor said.
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