Outrage Over FG Plans To Spend Ibori Loot

There is increasing uproar over the Federal Government’s decision to spend the about to be returned £4.2 million (around N2.2 billion) recovered from friends and associates of James Ibori on federal projects outside Delta State.

 GreenWhiteGreen GWG had reported on plans by the Federal Government to spend the money on Second Niger Bridge, Abuja-Kano Road and the Lagos-Ibadan road.

Ibori was governor of Delta State between 1999 and 2007 and was tried and convicted in the United Kingdom for laundering funds from the Delta State treasury in the United Kingdom.

Besides the Delta State Government which has vowed to appeal the decision in the Supreme Court a Civil Society Organisation, the Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ) has also flayed the decision.

The Delta State Commissioner for Information, Ehiedu Aniagwu speaking to reporters in Asaba said the state government would take the Federal Government to court over the issue.

According to Aniagwu, the federal government can only take a percentage for the cost of the recovery but deploy the funds into federal roads in the state.

“We would try to get take advantage of the legal system to make the federal government correct the injustice they are about to visit on us as a state,” he said.

“If they are quite sure that the funds they are about to repatriate left Delta State on account of those who have governed the state in the past, on what basis would they now take the money to another place,” he asked upon the Federal Government’s plans to spend the Ibori loot.

ANEEJ on its part besides charging the Federal Government to make open declaration on the value of the recovered funds faulted the decision to spend the money outside Delta State.

In a statement, ANEEJ’s executive director and head of Transparency and Accountability in Management of Returned Assets (MANTRA) project, Rev David Ugolor, wondered why returned asset of people of Delta State is to be used to finance federal infrastructural projects.

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