Ibori the Truck driver

Ibori the Truck driver, Ibori the Governor, Which Ibori Next? The Ex-con Saga

Prince Dickson

Over the cold morning weather, we sat at the University Open Air Theatre, a couple of eggheads, ‘intelligent’ students and the likes, as it was in the good old days we all gisted away, arguing, disagreeing to agree. Idealizing and releasing reality.

My vendor had been late in dropping the morning’s papers. So it was with mixed reactions I took in the information by a colleague that we now had an Ibori who was a truck driver. It became news when he further informed me that the chap was claiming to be the one who was convicted not the present Governor Ibori of Delta State.

In my head I felt nauseated at the things we do as Nigerians which only smell; of shame. The headline read ‘I’m the Ibori Convicted, Says Truck Driver’ The stage production of The Crooked Governor started when in 2003 two aggrieved members of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party PDP filed a case stating that the Governor, Ibori had once been convicted of a criminal case and as such was not qualified to stand for election. While Governor Ibori blamed everything to everyone for his persecution the play continued.

The new additional scene in this production has began with a truck driver who now lays claim to being the Ibori who was convicted in 1995 by an Upper Area Court in Bwari FCT Abuja. In the drivers words “he had to come up to own up to his actions so that an innocent person won’t suffer for my misconduct and sin”. Good morning Mr. Truck Driver…the Igbos have a proverb that says ‘when a man wakes up, is his morning’ to our truck driver Ibori gooooooood MORNING! Na wa! Nigerians don’t cease to amaze me or is it amaze themselves. My first reaction to the entire story was initially. How much did ‘they’ pay him and on whose camp is he? He said that his decision to come open was informed by his pastor’s advice. If all our pastors and imams could convince in like manner then the Nigerian police should annex some its functions to the Nigerian Pastors and Imams Conviction Force.

I tried to convince myself on the reasons why it had to take Ibori the Truck Driver this long to own up to the travails of a namesake. Then the pieces started to fall in to the puzzle proper, as an itinerant truck driver, who drives the whole of Nigeria and beyond. It was possible he was in far away Gambia all this while and even when he was around he stayed too short for anyone to brief him on the travails of not just Nigeria, his native Delta State and then his darling Governor.

For a person who could be sentenced to a #500 Naira fine or one year six months jail term on each count of negligence and criminal breach of trust. He must be literate to a point. He hardly was domiciled in a place for long, yet he stayed long enough to be a sheep in the flock of God’s Power Prayer and Deliverance Ministry where he was delivered. Incidentally the church is located in Orerokpe, Delta State.

I humbly suggest that this pastor replaces Justice Akanbi as head of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, he will sure perform miracles and do wonders.

As God would have it, the Governor and the Truck Driver are no Siamese twins of such. If not I would have been prejudiced into asserting that the trial Judge Auwual Yusuf was suffering from a form of identity blindness having earlier testified that the person hew sentenced was Ibori the Governor.

The FCT Chief Judge Justice Lawal Gumi in an investigation, submitted that the Delta State Governor was the same person convicted…on numerous occasions the Police report had either been uncertified or not available. Thus the production is further extended, like Nigerian movies that all end with ‘to God be the Glory’ we are far from the end of this one…We are only sure that we may have to watch out for more sequels and parts to this thriller.

It is not news that our Politicians are calculatively cruel, vindictive, ruthless, distinctively merciless, and are headhunters when it comes to rivalry. When they hunt themselves I am least concerned. After all dog eat dog. The issue, is what manner of offence ‘commiteth’ oh thou Ibori? First Governor Ibori’s counsel wanted the Police Report by all means and after several delays it resurfaces and the counsel is no longer as enthusiastic as before.

When matters like this occupy the public burner, you begin to ask why ridicule the Judiciary, the Police and Nigerians at large. If in today’s world, records of proceedings of a court case of barely ten years are mutilated, missing, stained, uncertified or a subject of lawsuits of this nature then I cry for my country.

I am sure since 2003 when this case was filed and all these while, Ibori the truck Driver was in Sudan and his Pastor was too preoccupied with happenings in Iraq to save Ibori the Governor. While the sane person has every reason to cry foul the question remains to which angle does one take his grievances. More amusing is the fact that the Governor has distanced himself from the Truck Driver, not that I had expected the Governor to sing Glory Hallelujah, given the way we can scheme things like these. The Governor called his Truck driver namesake “a faceless truck driver” Wonders shall never end! The Governor further said that this was a ploy to cover up, emerging evidence by those behind his travails.

Much as I have not convicted Governor Ibori myself… I hope tomorrow I wont wake up to hear there is another Justice James Ononaefe Ibori who convicted both Driver and Governor Ibori and like I once said was the President not an ‘ex-convict.