Ibori: Still a phenomenon at 53

Dan Amor, 0802  359  7734 (sms only pls)danamor67@yahoo.com


It is possible to distinguish three distinctive though overlapping phases in the critical evaluation of the Ibori phenomenon. The first centres on the validity of Iborian political doggedness as an adequate rendering of the Nigerian political life. This phase began with the reality of his humble background and his consuming desire and determination to rise above the common herd. Although specific scholarly argumentative study of the Ibori phenomenon will evolve with time, the larger-than-life stature the Oghara-born politician, publisher and businessman has assumed as a virtuoso of the Nigerian power game is sure to legitimatize the claim in some quarters that in spite of everything James Onanefe Ibori is a miracle. The second phase accentuates his passage to Asaba as one of the youngest of Nigeria’s 36 state governors when he secured a landslide victory as Executive Governor of the oil rich Delta State, South-South Nigeria in May 1999. This includes the challenges that confronted him as governor of a war-torn state and how he wooed the restive youths, pacified the feuding factions and confounded the bookmakers.

The third phase concerns the many battles he has had to fight and the victories recorded-an aspect of divine intervention which has helped to expose the futility of political persecution where the rule of law presides. Although political victimization and name-calling are popular weapons of chicanery in Nigerian politics since independence, never have they been prosecuted with such evil passion, hate and doggedness as witnessed in the fraudulent “ex-convict case” against Ibori. Official sponsorship of this brazen example of a matter cooked up with deceit and sustained by lies-including bad faith ensured that Ibori’s integrity was powerfully assaulted, but the man simply remained unbowed accepting rather to wade through the rigorous judicial process until his final vindication as an innocent man. It would be recalled that in the early days of pre-2003 gubernatorial election campaigns in Delta State, political bigotry, character assassination and the peddling of outright falsehood became flashpoints in the battle for the Government House, Asaba.

Two stalwarts of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Goodness Agbi and Anthony Alabi alleged to have been loyalists of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, conspired to institute a red-herring suit in the High Court, Abuja questioning Governor James Onanefe Ibori’s eligibility to contest the 2003 election. Through many tides and turns, the case gained a larger-than-life status due to Ibori’s enlarging image as a performer and monumental success as a visionary leader, with numerous radical ideas that have changed the face of Delta State for the good of the people. Ibori became Governor after almost 16 years of prolonged military gangsterism, rapacity and greed, a period when Delta State was the theatre of a war deliberately sponsored and promoted by the obnoxious central government in Abuja and its allies of multinational oil conglomerates in a divide-and-rule policy that pitched the Ijaws and Itsekiri against each other in order for the looters to have a free reign over the God-given oil of the Niger Delta. Like a typical war theatre, Warri the commercial hub of the State and its environs were completely desolate both physically and spiritually.

Ibori was, therefore, faced with a mountain of challenges: socially, politically and economically to contend with. In fact, what compounded Ibori’s task and made the degree of challenges faced by his administration assumed a frightening proportion were, in part, the several years of neglect and mismanagement by successive military administrations, the disunity among the various ethnic nationalities in the state, the environmental degradation occasioned by oil exploitation and exploration and the concomitant restiveness and agitations among the youths. Asaba the State capital was like a glorified village. The unmanageable rural-urban drift precipitated by the untold neglect of the rural communities, came to increase the problem of congestion and the menace of squalor and urban blight in Asaba. It is against this backdrop that the confounding but staggering achievements of the Ibori years in Delta could be adequately articulated. Senator Olorogun Felix Ibru, first executive Governor of Delta State was to declare in July 2006: “I think there has been some progress since I left office and I must give Governor James Ibori a pat on the back for the massive development of the state”.

Because, as Governor, he wanted to get things done, because he was often impatient and combative, because he felt simply and cared deeply, he made his share of mistakes, and enemies both within the state and the country. As a federalist, he it was who hosted the first ever conference of Niger Delta Governors and members of the National Assembly in Asaba in 2001, to take a position on the need for the oil producing region to be allowed to control its God-given resource and pay tax to the Federal Government as in a true federal state. Thus, he kick-started the official agitation for resource control. That was to be his greatest undoing, as the overbearing central government led by an equally overbearing and intemperate President saw him as a monstrosity and his action, an affront that must be halted. This was the beginning of Ibori’s travails. But, as an expedient, demanding and public-driven realist, he won all the battles against him and is still battling. He is profoundly revolutionary when viewed in the context of his time. More apparent, and more self-conscious, was the need for a new sense of identity and state character. What special qualities would distinguish the people of Delta State? What would be the habits and attitudes and characteristics of its people? What would they epitomize or stand for in Nigeria? Ibori laid the foundation for this new identity in Delta State.

Everyone knows that despite the numerous developmental strides the Ibori Administration made in Delta State which include roads in all nooks and crannies of the state, electrification, housing, educational institutions, health facilities, sport facilities, transportation, security, etcetera, Ibori built the Ase/Igbuku Bridge, the Ughoton-Omadina Bridge and the  famous Bomadi Bridge-bridges of hope and transformation – which demonstrate a classic testament of the journey into the new Niger Delta. The revolutionary significance of the Ibori years in Delta State is implicit in the nature and style of his administration. Though Ibori’s story is in its own way marvelous and majestic, like any other account of human dignity and potentiality, it nonetheless meets anyone who cares on his own ground. His overall testimony is therefore uplifting, challenging, relevant and revolutionary. For him, vanity, sloth, dissipation, timorousness, and hypocrisy must be shunned, while intrepidity, honesty, hard-work and charity are worthy attributes that must be promoted. As we celebrate him at 53, it is the desire of this column that his detractors and adversaries live long to see what he will become in the years ahead.