FORMER governor of Delta State, Chief James Ibori, a fortnight ago came back to the country after serving a jail term in the United Kingdom. Last weekend, a superfluous thanksgiving service was held in his village to celebrate his release from prison and return to Nigeria! The event that should ordinarily have been a private and quiet restitution was characterized by aplomb, lavishness and profuse testimonials by politicians, community leaders and the clergy amid the celebrator’s grandstanding testaments! It was as if Ibori had just won an Olympic gold medal or a Nobel Prize!
That public spectacle of misplaced values was demonstrative of the institutionalized erosion of our moral etiquette as a country. When has looting become a virtue? The degeneracy of our life is such that most people no longer see anything wrong in this kind of preposterous brazenness.
This leads the writer to the question of plea bargaining. Whoever came up with this thievish idea does not mean well for this country. Why should a bandit admit to banditry and then resolve to return the loot on interrogation without any form of penalty? Ideally, shouldn’t such a confirmed looter be compelled to return the loot and still face the wrath of the law?
Are our laws meant for only common criminals who on apprehension for paltry theft are sent to long prison terms? But, politicians who steal billions of naira are given a pat on the back for resolving to return what they stole—in most cases a part of it? What kind of bizarre system are we running?
Just last weekend, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, was happy with himself announcing to the nation that the federal government had recovered $151 million and N8 billion loot in two months. Please pause this perusal and clap for him! Why did he not tell us the names of those from who the loot was recovered? Why is the government protective of high-brow thieves? What kind of lame strategy is this, as I once heard, that if government discloses their names others will not return their own loot? This is a stupid strategy. We shall return to Lai Mohammed’s serial fallacies presently.
The government knows the bandits who looted the national treasury. If they do not return the money at the earliest possible time not exceeding three weeks, we arrest them, lock them away and forget them until they indicate willingness to show responsibility for their criminalities. This kid-glove treatment of national bandits is why we are not making progress with the battle against corruption. All that pervades the air is official lethargy in matters that should be decisively/clinically dealt with. As a nation, we do not need to pander to the whims and caprices of these kleptomaniacs. Why should we respect or fear rogues who have been rounded up? Having laid the foundation for our subject, let us explicate the issue using Ibori as a referral because of last Sunday’s thanksgiving service.
Last week, Ibori refuted a news report that he was deported from the United Kingdom. He affirmed that he came back on his own after he was set free. Whether deportation or not, the point that he was jailed in the UK can never be subsumed by any denial. The stigma is there and has no remedial management. So, let us not expend time on that as it is unnecessary and has hallmarks of futility. At the weekend, too, during a lavish thanksgiving service, Ibori stated that he never tampered with public funds. Why did he now plead guilty and was consequently jailed if, indeed, he was not guilty as charged? I think that Ibori should let sleeping dogs lie instead of toying with people’s intelligence and grasp of his case. The narrative is so clear that there is no point reopening old wounds or rehashing gory malfeasance.
Since Ibori returned to Nigeria his Oghara country-home has become a tourist attraction. All sorts of persons go there daily to “rejoice” with the governor. The pilgrimage to Oghara is symbolic of the level of moral depravity we have sunk to as a nation. A man completes his jail term overseas and comes back home only for us to celebrate him amid pomp and circumstance! Is such a development a reward for diligence or trivialization of the course of justice? What signal are we showing the younger members of the society? This is confirmatory of the fact that in Nigeria there is a reward for all manner of sharp practices, swindles, scams and sleaze.
On Sunday, February 12, 2017, there was an inauspicious thanksgiving service that allegedly shut down Delta State with people from all walks of life in attendance which held at the Theorist Baptist Church, Oghara, Ethiope West Local Government Authority of Delta State. I had expected that what Ibori needed was a modest and quiet time with the Lord thanking Him in the confines of his home for surviving the ordeal. This misplaced celebration as if Ibori won a global prize is antithetical to our moral regeneration and national rediscovery along the lines of ethicality, morality and nobility. For goodness’ sake, why should we be celebrating life after incarceration for admitted criminal guilt?
Ibori declared at the thanksgiving that while in prison he was more concerned about the well-being of his people than his personal travails. If truly Ibori meant what he said, he should have enthroned good governance while in office instead of this belated and inconsequential lachrymal posturing that borders on self-deceit and crying over spilt milk.
Prodigality can never be a virtue. It is instructive that Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State was not present on the occasion. His presence would have given it an official seal that would have worsened the misplaced ceremony. His earlier visit to the former governor even though not commendable could be excused on grounds of Ibori being one of his predecessors and allies.
Then the next day, Monday, February 13, the front and inside pages of virtually all the national newspapers were awash with seven-column pictorials of the Ibori thanksgiving! In respect for esprit d’ corps and camaraderie, I will not go into the economics of such “special” publications lest I wash our dirty linens in the public. For me, this front-page treatment of an issue that requires utmost sobriety confirms the rooting of corruption in all facets of our national life.
Overall, whatever Ibori does henceforth should be shrouded in profound candour, quietude, humility and again sobriety—not a bazaar of conviviality—lest he sends a wrong compass out for upcoming generations who may think that that is the right path. It is even not good for our national health and international reputation, perception and integrity.
All those people foolishly and shamelessly celebrating Ibori should be conscious of the corruption narrative that culminated in the history of this matter with all its freshness.
Indeed, our moral value, ethical threshold and existential etiquette have been fatally eroded and monumentally retarded, if not systemically damaged, by this thanksgiving show of dishonour and public opprobrium. With the pomp that has spectacularly galvanized the Ibori remorseless return, Nigeria’s moral bankruptcy and shamelessness in these matters need no elucidation.  I will not be surprised if tomorrow Ibori becomes a senator, a minister or an ambassador. It is the signpost of our irredeemable national depravity!

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