A London court on Tuesday rejected a former Nigerian oil state governor’s bid to reduce a $136.05 million asset confiscation order imposed on him after he was convicted in a corruption case.
James Ibori, who enjoys occasional access to President Bola Tinubu and remains influential in oil-producing Delta State, served more than four years in jail in Britain after his 2012 conviction.
He had pleaded guilty to laundering tens of millions of dollars in stolen public funds through British banks and properties during his time as governor of Delta from 1999 to 2007.
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In 2023, a lower London criminal court ordered that £101.5 million ($136.05 million) of his assets should be confiscated. It was one of the largest confiscation orders imposed on an individual in British legal history.
Ibori appealed, seeking to have it reduced by some £4.3 million, but on Tuesday the Court of Appeal rejected his lawyer’s arguments.
The appeal has been holding up the confiscation. It should now go ahead, unless Ibori seeks to appeal to the Supreme Court.
He told Reuters he was speaking to his lawyers to decide his next steps. He also said it had been a very long time since his troubles started. “Give me a break,” he added.
In his heyday as governor, Ibori was a household name in Nigeria and a powerful figure, given Delta’s importance to the national economy.
After a joint investigation into his financial affairs by Nigerian and British anti-corruption police, he left Nigeria for Dubai, and was extradited from there to Britain in 2011.
After his guilty plea in 2012, he received a 13-year prison sentence. Taking into account both pre- and post-trial detention, he served about half of it.
He was released in late 2016 and returned to Nigeria in early 2017