THESE FACTS ON IBORI WILL STUN YOU

Chief James Ibori, a former Governor of Delta State, regained freedom after being incarcerated for 13 years in the United Kingdom.

In this piece, Monday Uwuagu reels out facts  that may not have been known by members of the public.

FORMER Delta State Governor, Chief James Ibori, who was released from incarceration yesterday in London, United Kingdom, was born to Chief Adinomo Ibori and his wife, Comfort Oyi Ibori, in Oghara, Ethiope West Local Government Area of Delta State. He read Economics at the University of Benin, Benin City, Edo State.

He later went into partisan politics and in the wake of the return of democracy to Nigeria in 1999, he was elected governor of Delta State on the ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and, thus, became the second elected civilian governor of the state, after Chief Felix Ibru, a renowned architect. Ibru, who trained at Yaba College of Technology – the first tertiary school in Nigeria – was the state governor between March 2, 1991 and November 1993, when the Abacha military administration toppled the civil rule and demolished all its inherent structures, including the two-party structure earlier set up by the Babangida administration.

Two parties – the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the National Republican Convention (NRC), both now defunct – formed the plank of the political transition programme of the Babangida era.

See HOW IBORI MOVED HIS KINSMEN TO TEARS

Ibori, in the course of his watch as state governor, set record as the first man ever – civilian or military – to lead the state for a whole eight Gregorian years. This was after he served as two-term governor. His first term in office began on May 29, 1999 to May 28, 2003, while the second term ran from May 29, 2003 to May 28, 2007.

In a move typically symbolic of the deep harmony inherent in his political family, Ibori, the next day – May 29, 2007 – handed over the gubernatorial baton to his cousin and medical graduate of the same institution(UNIBEN), Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan. Both Uduaghan – son of a policeman who had served in several places in the defunct Bendel State – had grown up under the tutelage of Nene Abode, after whom Dr. Uduaghan named his private clinic in Warri.

Go to HABA! WHAT THIS RECTOR DID WILL SHOCK YOU

In the course of his two terms of eight years, Ibori walked into national political limelight on the crest of the popularity of his deep involvement in the campaign for resource control, the catch phrase for the strident aspiration of Niger Deltans for a greater say in the management of the huge proceeds of the immense crude oil deposits in their ancestral land.

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That campaign – for Ibori – earned him an ironic dividend; while it endeared him to the people of the region for his frontline constructive and actual roles in it, it had a direct opposite in the comity of non-Niger Deltan interests in Nigeria’s political elite, who saw in the campaign, an alleged subterranean move to undermine Nigeria’s territorial integrity.

Years after Ibori ceased to be governor, the campaign for resource control has taken a somewhat shape in the form of militancy that has been chiefly characterised by insurgency and the massive sabotage of critical oil facilities, including export terminals and related platforms. In fact, his ardent supporters believe that his travails and eventual incarceration in London by the Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday, April 17, 2012, had more to do with his perceived liberation role of his ancestral Niger Delta people than his alleged £50m fraud for which he was gaoled.

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The Ibori legacy, however, outlive his liberation activism; to his name stand eternal edifices in infrastructure. These include the imposing navigational bridge over River Raymos in Bomadi, the Omadino bridge; the Ase bridge – all laid out in marshy terrains thought impossible to build on; the three polytechnics at Oghara, Ogwashi-Uku and Ozoro, the College of Physical Education at Mosogar; the Delta State University Teaching Hospital (DELSUTH), Oghara; the Delta Towers, Abuja and legion other infrastructure-related facilities.

His administration is equally credited with the massive recruitment of teaching and other hands into the state public education sector, as well as the massive renovation of public primary and secondary schools in the state. His administration equally ran a free education policy in its schools at both the basic and secondary levels. He is generally perceived as a generous mind.