Former Governor James Ibori of Delta State, said to be a former cashier at Wickes, London, was on Tuesday sentenced to a 13-year jail term in the United Kingdom, over of a scam of 157million.The prosecutor said he 'personally pocketed 50million which he splashed on a life of luxury including his own private jet..'According to the prosecutor, Ibori, 49, 'an ex-governor of Delta State with presidential aspirations, stole public funds for a lavish and expensive lifestyle.'His spending included a portfolio of luxury houses, a 12.6million private jet, a fleet of top-of-the-range cars, top UK boarding school places for his children, first-class travel and posh hotels.'As his people struggled in poverty, Ibori's monthly credit card bills alone topped 125,000.The trial judge said 'it is estimated that the embezzlement from the Delta State is yet unquantified, but could exceed 157million which was laundered in London through a number of off-shore companies.'Ibori's case at Southwark Crown Court was delayed on Monday, after a ruckus broke out in the corridor and police had to be called in to control crowds of his supporters.Prosecutor Sasha Wass was thrown to the floor as Ibori's supporters tried to rush into the tiny courtroom.She told the hearing: 'The defendant was governor of Delta State, one of the richest oil producing states in Nigeria, between November 1999 and May 2007.'It is the prosecution case that during his two terms in office he deliberately and systematically defrauded the people whose interests he had been elected to represent he went on to launder the money he stole in this country.''He inflated state contracts, took kickbacks, and through bent employees stole cash straight from the state accounts and secreted the cash into off-shore accounts across the globe.'Instead of using the money to help his people, he bought a 2.2 mansion in Hampstead with cash, a house in Regents Park, a flat in St John's Wood, a 311,000 home in Dorset and a 3.2million mansion in Johannesburg, as well as a house in Houston.'His greed and acquisitiveness was also represented by his fleet of armoured Range Rovers worth 600,000, a 120,000 Bentley, a Jaguar for his Hampstead home and a Mercedes Maybach bought for 407,000 Euros that was shipped direct to his mansion in South Africa, Ms Wass said.At an earlier hearing, Ibori pleaded guilty to ten offences, eight of money laundering, one of conspiracy to defraud Delta State and one of conspiracy to forge.Ibori moved to the UK in the 1980s where he married his wife, Theresa, and worked as a cashier at Wickes in Ruislip, Middlesex, earning around 15,000 a year before the couple were arrested for theft from the store in 1990 and fined 300, Daily Mail reported.A year later, he was said to have had another brush with the law when he was convicted of handling a stolen credit card and fined 100 before he moved back to Nigeria and started as a 'Policy Consultant' to the late military dictator, General Sani Abacha before he later joined the ruling People's Democratic Party.Daily Mail reported that 'after lying to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) by using a fake date of birth gained through a false passport to hide his previous convictions and financial status, Ibori was elected as state governor for Delta State from 1999 - giving him immunity from prosecution for his two terms until 2007,' which Ms Wass described it as 'planned fraud.' 'He didn't accidentally become involved in a pre-existing corruption, he changed his date of birth in 1996. From the moment he was elected, he set out enriching himself at the expense of some of the poorest people in the world.'His greed increased exponentially during the course of his governorship as did his arrogance. It was heard that he tried to pay a $15m bribe to a government official to make the corruption investigation 'go away.''Even after he began to be investigated in 2005, Ibori involved himself in another massive fraud and tried to bribe Nigerian officials, interfere with the trial and impugn the integrity of the officers.'He was helped by family members, including his wife, sister Christine Ibori-Ibie, his mistress Udoamaka Oniugbo, and a series of corrupt professionals, a London-based lawyer, Bhadresh Gohil, who acted as his banker and set up a myriad of off-shore companies, a fiduciary agent, Daniel Benedict McCann, a corporate financier, Lambertus De Boer - who have all been jailed for a total of 30 years.His fraud was unravelled when the Met Plice raided the office of his trusted servant, Gohil, 47, who has since been jailed for 10 years, and found hard drives containing detailed records hidden in the wall behind a fire place.'A series of trials have taken place leading to six convictions and sentences totalling 30 years but Ibori has made a number of attempts to disrupt the course of justice,' Ms Wass said.When he was arrested in Nigeria in 2007, the High Court froze assets worth 35million despite him only earning around 4,000 a year. A court later dismissed the charges and he fled to Dubai where he was arrested by the Met. What finnaly exposed him was his bid to purchase a $20million jet ' it was at that point he was finally arrested.
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