By Tamunoebi Youdouwei
Citing renewed violence in the Niger Delta and the former governor’s wide support base in the region, top presidency officials are waiting to bait Chief James Ibori to lead a project to pacify the region and build goodwill in the region.
Ordinarily Chief James Ibori, who is likely to be released from prison in London before Christmas should be a pariah, but the unstable and unsettled political calculations in the oil-rich Niger Delta region, from which he hails, has thrown up the former Delta State governor as a beautiful bride for politicians from across the country.
Sources say top politicians who are gauging the state of the country see in Ibori a man with tremendous goodwill and political sagacity to take hold of the Niger Delta, a region he is versed in and where he championed the resource control campaign that won him both supporters and enemies, especially in the federal government in Abuja. That campaign that drew fire from President Olusegun Obasanjo is part of the reason Chief Ibori was hounded to jail in London, aside other allegations over which he is still claiming his innocence.
In 2000, while serving as governor of Delta State, Chief Ibori along with Akwa Ibom State governor Victor Attah and Bayelsa State governor, Late DSP Alamieyeseigha, led a sustained effort at fiscal federalism that caught the Obasanjo federal regime flatfooted; they tested the waters of Nigeria’s federalism and made the point that states should have a significant level of control over their resources, an effort that ensured that the federal government continued with the 13% derivation payment. It was a campaign that won the heart of some governors of resource rich states such as Lagos State governor Bola Tinubu, who was then on the platform of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) but is today a building-block of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
That wide contact and effective mobilisation is what politicians are looking to mine, aside the fact that while he was governor Ibori was a leader who was on ground. His groundbreaking effort at resolving the hitherto intractable Warri crisis of violence among the three indigenous ethnic groups and massive infrastructural works as governor put him in good stead among the people but his disagreement with some local political leaders led to the orchestrated campaign that landed him in jail in the UK.
Already, news of his impending release has gotten politicians in Delta State active and many outside the region are looking with great interest.
One source close to the presidency justified the interest in Ibori despite the impression that he would be clamped in jail once he comes back: “There has to be a basis to jail him. The fact that he has been convicted in the UK does not mean he will automatically serve time when he comes back home. The cases against him and other politicians are ongoing and if he has any, it will follow that route. I think it will be an overkill to ignore several politicians who have cases to answer and have not been convicted and keep on flogging Ibori and they are very many, from the former governors to ministers and even former presidents.”
The man who is well-connected to the current federal administration sees a use for Ibori. “I can tell you that there are people in government that are asking themselves what value will be gained from harassing Ibori vis-a-vis tapping his contacts to restore peace to the Niger Delta?”
While he did not expatiate further, there are concerns that President Buhari has not been able to manage the sabotage of oil industry facilities by renewed militancy attack because he does not have the right people leading the effort. As governor, Ibori was one of those who laid the groundwork for the enduring peace that prevailed in Delta State and other states in the Niger Delta from late 2007, when he served as late President Musa Yar’Adua’s political diplomat in the region, helping to prepare the nation for the adoption of the amnesty programme that came to be the foundation for the stability of the oil industry for the next few years. Unfortunately, other items on the agenda were not followed through after Yar’Adua’s death in 2010.
Perhaps to underscore his political value, different groups in Delta State are planning to receive him in a grand way. Several of them have stationed in London to await his release to his London home from where he would return to Nigeria once the asset forfeiture cases are resolved. Many of his old political soul mates are looking to receive him also.
It is an astonishing turnaround for a man who was vilified and taken as the poster-boy of corruption by the previous federal government. The reason is not far-fetched. Even among his archenemies, including Obasanjo, Ibori was acknowledged as a leader who not only dreamed big, but walked the talk. While commissioning some of four bridges Ibori built to link up island communities during a state visit, President Obasanjo remarked that he had not seen anything like them and called him the ‘bridge-builder’.
It is one reason there is excitement that Ibori is being released, aside many political actors today who he nurtured and empowered. That quality is why politicians and the Nigerian presidency are looking to see to what value Ibori can be put to work on Nigeria’s many seemingly intractable problems.