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My Lekki house was built in 1994 –Ibori

1/28/2013

Former Delta State Governor, James Onanefe Ibori, has debunked recent media report which claimed that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has discovered his “secret mansion” at No. 5 Alpha Beach Road, Lekki, Lagos.

“That this claim was credited to a press statement signed and distributed by EFCC’s spokesman, Mr. Wilson Uwujiaren, actually made it more bizarre,” Ibori said on Sunday in a statement signed by his Media Assistant, Tony Eluemunor.

Ibori said the house in question “could not have been secret at all as it was listed down in Asset Declaration Forms he filled in 1999, 2003 and 2007. So that house has never been a secret.”

He added: “Despite EFCC’s insinuations to the contrary, the Alpha Beach Road house was built as far back as 1994, and so could not have, by any leap of the imagination, been built with proceeds, corrupt or not corrupt, from my office as State Governor because I began to live in that house five good years before I was voted into office.”

The statement said the only rational explanation for the emergence of the present story “where well-known facts were twisted to deceive the public is that as the confiscation process against Ibori progresses, some elements within the EFCC may desperately be trying to manufacture things to uphold their often exaggerated stories about Ibori’s wealth.

“Also, if the stories published about the house were actually based on EFCC’s statement, it means that the EFCC has accepted that Ibori was actually enormously rich at least half a decade before he became Governor of Delta State – after all, EFCC and the media called the house a ‘mansion’, describing it in superlative terms.

“So, perhaps trying to hide this fact that Ibori was a man of means before he became Governor, the EFCC and their agents are using all infernal tricks to cast doubts about when Ibori actually built that house.”

Ibori reiterated that the house was not only built in 1994 before he became Governor, it has featured in his asset declarations.

“Also, Chief Ibori has been cooperating fully with the London Metropolitan Police since the preliminary stages of the confiscation process began, in line with the United Kingdom Criminal Justice Act (CJA) of 1988; so he does not see why the house has become an issue – especially as Nigeria has surrendered her jurisdictional sovereignty to Britain.”

The statement urged Nigerians to note that “this is one more evidence that what Ibori has faced, and is still facing even after he has been sentenced, is just political persecution.

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