DPP hails verdict on Ibori, Delta govt defers comment

THE opposition Democratic People's Party (DPP) yesterday hailed the sentencing of former Delta State Governor, James Ibori, to 13 years imprisonment in the United Kingdom (UK).The party said that the judgment was a vindication of its long-standing allegation that Ibori looted Delta State for eight years.On its part, the Delta State government said that it was reserving its comment for lack of full facts of the judgment.The Delta State Chairman of the opposition DPP, Chief Tony Ezeagwu, said that he was a happier man and felt taller when the British judge sentenced Ibori to 13 years imprisonment for corruption and money laundering.Speaking in a telephone interview, the Commissioner for Information, Mr. Chike Ogeah, said that apart from some online reports in news agencies, the government was yet to be abreast of the detailed judgment, promising that the government would speak on the issue when it got a copy of the judgment.Ezeagwu recalled that the party and its governorship candidate, Chief Great Ogboru, were castigated when they alerted the people on Ibori's profligacy when he was governor between 1999 and 2003.He demanded speedy repatriation of all the stolen money by Ibori and his clan, adding that there was nothing to write home about the state of Nigerian judiciary which had earlier cleared the former governor of all corrupt charges only to own up to the same charges in London in a dramatic U-turn.Former Senator Francis Spanner Okpozo said he could not blame anybody for being penalised for his own omission or commission.Okpozo, a former Deputy Speaker of the old Bendel State House of Assembly during the ill-fated Second Republic, advised that people, especially those in government, should try to be honest in their dealings and should always look up to God and be strict.He said that he wished Ibori the best but noted that the stolen money should be 'put in an escrow account pending when the situation in the state normalises.
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