What Ibori’s loot could do for Delta State

In the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP), his name was legendary.  So too in the oil-rich Niger Delta region where he ruled Delta State, one of the country’s richest, for eight years.  Now he lives in infamy, stuck far away in a London prison.

With his stolen wealth James Onanefe Ibori bought himself court rulings squashing all evidences put out against him by anti-corruption groups, including the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).  His loot earned him choice houses in the most expensive places in London, Johannesburg, Dubai and other cities.

A retinue of followers, more interested in his money than whatever image he may have, drummed support for him wherever he went.  At just 45, he had become not just a kingmaker in the national political space, but a king in the waiting.

Before it all went to pieces, Ibori was the typical PDP chieftain; a much more vibrant fixer-in-chief than Bode George, the ex-convict who now leads the party’s South West arm.

But on April 17, Ibori the powerful, became Ibori the miserable.  Before Judge Anthony Pitts of London’s Southwark Crown Court, Ibori looked most pitiable; a complete shadow of the once boisterous and assertive politician.  Such a loss of control was highly out of character for him.  His huge imposing figure thinned and his charisma fizzled away as he watched the judge slam a 13-year jail term on him.  The fog of invincibility that once surrounded him, evaporated with alacrity.

A machinery of greed

For a man who was cleared of all charges against him by a high court in Delta state, the bombshell ruling by Judge Pitts was an anti-climax.  But for what some call ‘the Maradonic tendencies’ of former president Olusegun Obasanjo, Ibori would have been the man calling the shots now in Aso Rock.  He had better clout and catch than Goodluck Jonathan, the incumbent.  His connections to Abuja were much stronger. For the eight years that he was governor of Delta State, he seemed larger-than-life.

In a region that boasts of equally rich and powerful governors like Peter Odili of Rivers, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa and Obong Victor Attah of Cross River states, Ibori stood tall and in many ways was the chief of them all.  

His voice on the agitation for resource control was the loudest among the Niger Delta governors and as a key financier of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP), he was not just a kingmaker; he was the king in waiting.

There is a difference between how many Nigerians now see Ibori and how many of the PDP folks view him.  For the PDP hierarchy, it is Ibori who is the ultimate financial bogeyman.  For most of them, the money he managed were a central part of the party’s financial ecosystem.  “In fact, the single largest recipient of funds stolen from Delta State has been the PDP. One day we might, as a nation, ask how the over N200 billion spent in the 2011 presidential election by the party was sourced,” writes Dele Sobowale, a renowned columnist.

Corrosive corruption

When people in government abuse national assets, it is the poor that suffer the most.  Corruption perpetuates poverty and strikes the disadvantaged harder than any other group.  It has many faces, but a common theme is that it hurts the poor directly and disproportionately.  In no place is this reality more obvious than in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta region.

The most conservative estimate is that between $4 to $8 billion dollars is stolen from Nigeria’s treasury annually by those who otherwise should manage it for the common good.  The obvious impact is that the majority of its citizens get poorer while the politically privileged few lead luxurious lives.

Latest poverty profile report released by National Bureau of Statistics in Abuja indicates that absolute poverty increased in Nigeria 54.7% in 2004 to 60.9% in 2010. This implies that 99.28 million Nigerians live in absolute poverty.  On dollar-per-day measure, poverty in the country increased from 51.6% in 2004 to 61.2% in 2010.  In population terms this is over 100 million people.

The stark contrast is that poverty has significantly risen in Nigeria at a time when the economy was growing at an annual rate of nearly 7%.  Nigeria's average GDP growth was 6.71% reaching an historical high of 8.29% in December of 2010.  “It is not surprising that these figures didn’t tally as you would expect.  The period in question was when the war in Iraq drove oil prices to the roof top and Nigeria made a lot of money.

“What you do with the money is what reduces or increases poverty and for us the best way to get a sense of how the money went is to think of what Ibori, Alamieyeseigha, Odili and Attah did with the huge allocation they got in their states during their term in office,” said Ikenna Chijindu, a Port Harcourt-based economist.

 “Across the Niger Delta, inequality is soaring. Gaps between the rich and the poor are widening.  The reason is simple – these states are highly politicized with wide spread corruption,” explained Priye Sokari, banker in Asaba, the capital of Delta state.  “I feel sick when I look at the numbers.  What comes into Rivers State in a year is bigger than what Benin Republic as a country receives, yet the populations are nothing near each other, but while the government in Benin will invest in providing power for its people, Odili invested in buying us an executive governor’s jet which the present governor wants to change for something more expensive.”

Like the central government, the failure of Niger Delta governors to properly invest the extra cash from derivation -- has an explanation that seems to reside in their bulging pockets and those of their cronies as revelations from the recent conviction of James Ibori, former governor of Delta state has revealed.

Living a lie

For Ibori, living a lie had once been a full-time job.  One EFCC official described him as ‘the prince of liars’.  Most of the money that paid for his lifestyle was pilfered from Delta state treasury.  He was clearly motivated by greed and a necessity to keep up appearances.  Though his annual salary was just $25,000, his monthly credit card bill was $200,000.  What Ibori spends from his credit card every month, could train at least five medical doctors going by an estimate from the UN.  Delta state's annual budget for health in 2010 was only 4.8 per cent of the total.  The $18.79 million (N3bn) he spent to buy a private jet, could build a 42 kilometer dual carriage way at an estimated N70 million per kilometer.

The deprivation

The London court that convicted Ibori stated that he stole at least $250 million while in office.  That figure is more than what the federal government budgeted for water resources in the 2012 budget.  It is more than was provided for science and technology; and more than twice the budget of the Ministry of Communications Technology in the same budget.

 To understand the damage done to Delta state during Ibori’s eight years in office is to examine what the money he stole could do in education and health, two critical sectors where the state is hugely deprived.  According to figures from the National Bureau of Statistics, 64 per cent of Deltans live on less than a dollar a day.

Ibori’s average loot per week could train at least 15 medical doctors and 24 nurses in the university.  It could provide $500 scholarship to 1,202 secondary school students which could effectively stop street hawking by teenagers in Asaba and Warri, the political and economic capitals of Delta state.  

The $18.79 million Ibori spent on private jet, could build and equip at least 30 good clinics in some of the riverine areas of the state at an estimate of $626,300 per clinic.

This article is jointly authored by Godwin Nnanna and J. Nathan Mattias