TheCable

BY CHRISTOPHER AKOR

My short rebuttal of Magnus Onyibe long-winding, verbose (over 5,800 words) and revisionist piece titled: “Ibori and the obnoxious British legal system: What manner of Justice?” so irritated Mr Onyibe that he decided to do a 4,157-word rejoinder where he variously termed my rebuttal “infantile tirades, bigoted, nonsensical, mischievous, and emotional outbursts.” Not done, he went personal, declaring me to be immature, hollow minded, of having “a simplistic mind”, a “kindergarten mindset” a “naive mindset”, and of still being wet under the ears, advising me for added measure to “stop dabbling into matters that are far deeper than [my] simplistic mind can process”.

But anyone who has the patience and time of going through his verbiage of a rejoinder will at once notice that Mr Onyibe was so rattled by my simple admonishing on him and his fellow goons to stop attempting to rewrite history that he completely flew off the handle and descended into the mud to fight dirty, throwing mud here, muck there, like his master Ibori, hoping I will follow suit. I will not. I was trained to speak and write civilly at all times. I will only admonish him to look closely at the mirror. It’s amazing how we often see and describe ourselves in others.

Well, Mr Onyibe may wish to know I have absolutely no interest in discussing what he termed the big picture of his piece – “insincerity of the Western powers in the anti graft crusade as evidenced by the double standards applied (in desperation to reap where they did not sow) when it comes to confiscating the so called proceeds of corruption from alleged corrupt leaders from developing countries,” and “the developed world’s failure to repatriate the proceeds that they strip off their victims…” If Mr Onyibe is a student of international politics and diplomacy as he claims, he will know that realism governs interactions among nations and smart nations act only in ways that advance their interest(s). It is therefore naive on our part to expect the Western world to deprive themselves of the use of the money our kleptocratic leaders so generously stashed in their countries and return them to us just for the asking. It doesn’t happen in the real world despite pretences to the contrary. We can’t always portray ourselves as helpless victims of our leaders and the West. That resort to victimhood is exactly why we remain in the same position or even worse since independence; why we continue to clamour, campaign and beg for reparations for slavery and colonialism while some others who suffered similar or worse fate than us took their destinies into their own hands and have transformed their countries and the lives of their peoples.

No, I would rather campaign and demand for accountability from our leaders. I would rather demand for the building and strengthening of strong institutions of restraints like they have in the developed world that drives societal growth and development and prevents the stealing or even mismanagement of public funds. It is my long held belief that institutions are the building blocks of society and the only guarantee for sustainable growth and development. I have always held the view that the very cause of corruption is the absence or weakness of institutions. In most cases, corruption serves mainly to grease the wheels of inefficient government bureaucratic machines leading to efficient outcomes. Therefore, the best means of eliminating or minimising corruption is by creating a capable state, which, in the words of Ricardo Hausmann, “can protect the country and its people, keep the peace, enforce rules and contracts, provide infrastructure and social services, regulate economic activity, credibly enter into inter-temporal obligations, and tax society to pay for it all”. I believe, like Francis Fukuyama, that the development of a capable state that is accountable and ruled by law is one of the crowning achievements of human civilization.

No, I will not apply my energy and the veritable BusinessDay platform to pressurise Western countries where our looted funds are located to repatriate the funds as Mr Onyibe requested. That is a short-term, futile and unproductive endeavour. Returned funds can be re-looted and the circle will never end. My preoccupation is to see that Nigeria develops strong and vibrant institutions of restraints that will hold leaders accountable and prevent the likes of Ibori and his wife, sister, and mistress from turning state funds into personal funds.

What I simply did in my rebuttal was to focus on what I feel was the most important part of Mr Onyibe’s piece, which fortunately, he has repeated in the first paragraph of his rejoinder – that James Ibori “was unjustly jailed after he,(under duress) pleaded guilty to money laundering charges without trial…” This, I rightly termed an attempt by Ibori’s goons “to rewrite history, twist facts and present Ibori as a victim of both national and international conspiracy”.

I have closely followed the Ibori drama since he was a governor. No! Mr Ibori is not a victim. He is a die-hard and incorrigible criminal who horned his crime skills on the streets of London (as his two convictions for stealing shows) long before returning to Nigeria to capture power in Delta state. He was only smart enough to plead guilty before trail and received a mild sentence. His wife, sister, mistress and lawyer had all been convicted in open courts before then and it was only a matter of time before he joined them. The revisionist tale by Mr Onyibe and other Ibori goons that he pleaded guilty under duress is pure hogwash and I know even Mr Onyibe, in his heart, doesn’t believe it too.

Yes, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) later found “material to support the assertion that a police officer received payment in return for information” that did not call into question the validity of Ibori and his associates’ conviction. What Mr Onyibe didn’t say was that the police officer involved took payments for information in 2007 from a firm of private detectives working on Ibori’s behalf to scuttle any attempt to try him in the UK. Is it not disingenuous for Ibori goons to claim that just because a single policeman accepted bribe from their master, his can no longer be convicted?

Onyibe and the other legion of Ibori goons trying to rewrite history cannot and will not be allowed to succeed. We will always be there to thwart their ignoble attempts.

Finally, my advice to Mr Onyibe is: get busy. A busy man will not have the time to devote to such worthless histrionics. But I may understand Mr Onyibe’s persistence. His loyalty may yet bear fruit. Despite his incarceration, Mr Ibori is said to be the most powerful politician and godfather in Delta state, and one of the most influential godfathers of Nigerian politics deciding who occupies what position in Delta state and in the National Assembly. But Ibori still has some time to stay in the UK before coming back home – that is if Buhari and the EFCC will not clamp him into jail again as they are threatening. Mr Onyibe may find the waiting time tortuous!