The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Lucky Igbinedion

  • N25bn fraud: Judge defers judgment on Igbinedion, others

    A judge of the Federal High Court in Benin, Edo State, Justice Mohammend Liman, on Tuesday failed to deliver judgment in the N25 billion money laundering case instituted against former Governor of Edo State, Chief Lucky Igbinedion and six others by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

    They were arraigned on an 81-count charge bordering on money laundering, misappropriation of funds, conspiracy and abuse of office.

    Other persons mentioned in the case are – a younger brother to the former governor, Micheal, Patrick Eboigbodin and their four companies.

    The crime was committed when Igbinedion was Governor of Edo State between 1999 and 2007.

    He was earlier freed by the court but an appeal court ruling reverted the case to the lower court, insisting that the ex-governor has a case to answer.

    Michael served as his personal assistant, Patrick was a former Accountant-General and the four companies are – Gava Corporation Limited, Romrig Nigeria Limited, PMI Securities Company Limited and PML (Nigeria) Limited.

    Delivery of judgment in the case had been shifted severally.

    Judgment was fixed for January 30 but was not delivered due to iill-health of the trial Judge.

    It was again fixed for April 17 but it was postponed to April 20 because of the Judge’ Easter vacation.

     

  • Why Lucky Igbinedion failed – Ex-commissioner

    A former Commissioner for Information and Orientation in the administration of Chief Lucky Igbinedion in Edo State, Charles Idahosa, has explained why the administration failed.

    He said Igbinedion’s administration was hijacked by a cabal led by the former governor’s father, Chief Gabriel Igbinedion and the Chairman, Board of Trustee of the Peoples Democratic Party, Chief Tony Anenih.

    The former commissioner who is now a Political Adviser to Governor Adams Oshiomhole said the ex-governor lost focus in middle of the game despite the good dreams he had for the state.

    Idahosa, who spoke in an interview with our correspondent, disclosed that he became friends with the former governor in 1972 and that he became a target of the cabal because he was a watchdog to him (Lucky).

    According to him, he was fired three times during the former governor’s eight years rule because he was telling him the truth.

    He said, “The former governor planned to build a fly-over in the now Oba Ovoramwen Square as well as embark on numerous projects but derailed because of so much pressure.

    “He is a very strong and hard working person. He had a good dream for the state. He is my very close friend but he lost focus in the middle of the game. Before he became governor, he knew what he wanted to do.”

    “Don’t forget he was the best local government chairman in Nigeria between 1987 and 1989. He was the local government chairman that tarred roads. He built over three markets. When he became governor, the cabal led by his father and Chief Anenih took over and I became the target because I was like his watchdog.”

    “I told him not to listen to these men but he did not listen. When he became governor, he had a dream but somewhere along the line he derailed because there was so much pressure. He was not his own man. He was a big victim.”

     

  • Lucky but shameless

    Lucky but shameless

    Convict Igbinedion runs his mouth because, by plea bargaining, he escaped rotting in gaol

    Lucky Igbinedion’s insulting crows in the media of late clearly shows the evil of legal technicality and the dysfunction of plea bargaining in the face of worsening sleaze and corruption.

    Igbinedion, convict and best forgotten former governor of Edo State, has suddenly found his voice. He is no thief, he brazenly says in a new media campaign swing, simply because the state he allegedly raped was too poor to be stolen from! Disingenuous, isn’t it?

    But it is not Igbinedion’s fault. It is the fault of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). EFCC abandoned a 191-count charge of alleged sleaze to hastily settle for Igbinedion’s guilty plea for not declaring the cash in an account no: 4124013983110, with an unnamed new generation bank, contrary to the provision of Section 27 (3) of the EFCC Act 2008. In exchange, Igbinedion plea-bargained to forfeit the N3.5 million in that account.

    So, by that stroke of what looked like legal legerdemain, Igbinedion escaped gaol on  December  17, 2008, in Justice Abdul Kafarati’s court, even if the convict was a pitiful sight in the dock before the great escape.

    Six years on, the convict has suddenly found his voice! In decent societies, even lucky outcasts should know when and how not to talk. Igbinedion may have been lucky to escape the monumental gaol his alleged humongous sleaze, if proven, should have fetched him.

    But he is still a convict. So, he should not delude himself that he could go on a media binge to say whatever he likes, within the ambit of the law. That is the confine of spotless citizens, which Igbinedion is not.

    Indeed, what Igbinedion said and how he said it were most insulting and unconscionable. Even the matter of his conviction: if his motives were pure, why did he, like a petty criminal, try to hide that he had N3.5 million in an account in his name? Selective amnesia?  Or petty but stupid lying?

    And the scandalous evocation of the Zairean Mobutu in the local Edo economy! Like Mobutu, the monumental thief who loaned his country money from the trove he had looted from it, Lucky claimed he borrowed money from certain individuals to run his bankrupt state!

    Are these individuals then richer than a state with monthly allocations from the Federation Account, aside from locally raised revenue? By the way, were these loans receipted? What interest rates were paid on them — or were they interest-free, coming from super-benevolent patriots to a failed and banana state? And how did the patriotic prodigal repay the debt, after eight useless years in office — or was there patriotic debt forgiveness?

    Whatever direction, Igbinedion’s claims stink — and he ought to be thoroughly ashamed of himself.

    Curiously enough, after Igbinedion’s tenure of infamy and the sorry bid of his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to rig in a successor to cover his notorious tracks collapsed, new Governor Adams Oshiomhole suddenly found the golden pot the prodigal Igbinedion could not find in eight years!

    Now, how does the scion of Edo feel driving on the enhanced roads and other renewed infrastructure of Benin, his hometown — like some useless child who, with contempt, points at his ancestral home with his left index finger?

    Indeed, the alleged sleaze from which Igbinedion is trying childish pranks to distance himself, simply because he escaped gaol, is not unlike what the Jewish would call chutzpah: a child commits parricide by killing both of his parents. Yet, he has the satanic nerves to plead with the court to please set him free, simply because he is an orphan!

    It was clear to anyone that the Igbinedion gubernatorial era was a disaster. He neither had the temper nor the gravity to be a governor of legacy. Indeed, a tale made the round after his first term about his father, the Esama, reportedly pleading that even if his son had not done well — which was so clear he hadn’t — at least he should earn a chance for a re-sit, like a failed university student! It was probably an apocryphal tale. But it did capture the spirit of Lucky Igbinedion’s unlucky era of waste and purposelessness.

    Of course, Igbinedion is well established in the infamous class of the PDP era in several states: Anambra, Ekiti, Ondo, Oyo, Osun — worthless governors who claimed there was no money to deliver services, only to be proved wrong by their immediate successors.

    Between Igbinedion and Oshiomhole, the Edo people know who has raped and who has served them. Igbinedion should find other ways to exhibit his guilt complex, when his conscience tells him he should be in gaol. He should stop insulting the rest of us with his tales by the moonlight.

  • I borrowed from my dad, Anenih to run Edo, says Igbinedion

    I borrowed from my dad, Anenih to run Edo, says Igbinedion

    •Claims state had no money he could steal

    Chief Lucky Igbinedion   yesterday revisited his tenure as Edo State governor between 1999 and 2007 and denied looting the state treasury.

    He said the state had no money to steal and that he had to borrow from his father, Chief Gabriel Igbinedion and the Chairman, PDP Board of Trustees (BoT), Chief Antony Anenih to enable his administration meet some of its financial commitments.

    The former governor who was convicted by the Federal High Court, Enugu, in December 2008 for corruption broke his silence in an interview with newsmen in Abuja ahead of his 57th birthday on Tuesday.

    He was sentenced to a fine of N3.5million after pleading guilty to a one count charge of neglecting to make a declaration of his interest  in  Account No:4124013983110 in a new generation bank in his declaration of assets form.

    Igbinedion said yesterday that despite the financial constraints faced by the state in his time as governor, he was able to deliver the dividends of democracy to his people and even performed better than his military predecessors.

    “For you to loot, there must be something. Edo State had no money to loot,” he said and  expressed gratitude to his father and Anenih for bailing the state out of  financial problems..

    His words: “In the darkest of days when the state was broke and could not pay salaries, I would run to these two people and they would borrow me money. They borrowed the state money.

    “Chief Anenih is around the corner here, you can go and ask him whether I borrowed money from him or not,” he said.

    On the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) that prosecuted him, he said: “EFCC do not have sharks there. They are just doing their job. If they challenge you, you answer their question,” he said of the anti corruption agency that prosecuted him.

    He added: “I have nothing to fear. I was outside the country when they (EFCC) said I was declared wanted. I came back. If I had any fear, I would have been running, but I had the confidence that there was nothing to fear. If there is anything, it is the state that is owing me money and not me owing them.

    “Between you and I, if not for family pressure, I contemplated resigning, especially during my second tenure. I just asked myself why was I going through all these troubles.  First and foremost, you do not have the money to do some of the projects you want to do even though there was no way I would have completed the projects with the whole money in the world.”

    On ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo’s allegation that he was spending Edo State’s funds on Owanbe (party) in office, Igbinedion quipped: “How do you spend on Owanbe? He was having Owanbes himself too.”

    He was also taken up on the statement attributed to his father in the run-up to the 2003 election that he (Lucky) should be given a second term because if a student fails to gain promotion to a higher class his teacher would give him a chance to repeat.

    He dismissed the statement as a joke.

    “That was just a joke. Those are jokes about leaders all around the world. You were showing to me a similar joke about Jonathan and Patience. I am sure you do not believe that.

    “My father never said anything like that. I have a lot of jokes going on. In terms of performance, I am glad history is beginning to reveal itself. I performed credibly well. The perception and expectations are two different things.

    “In terms of performance, I stand to be challenged that my performance surpasses that of every other military governors before me. But a lot of people tend to forget things.”

    He also denied installing Comrade Adams Oshiomhole as  his successor.

    He said both himself and Chief Anenih were used as pawns in 2007 and Oshiomhole capitalized on the circumstances to get elected as governor.

    Igbinedion said: “You can go and check. There is nothing like that. When some people say that I sponsored Adams Oshiomhole and brought him to power, I laugh. I did not bring Oshiomhole to power

    “It was the circumstances of the time that sprang up Oshiomhole. I am a registered member of PDP. I served two terms under the PDP. I am still a card-carrying member of PDP. I believe in PDP and will continue to support the PDP.

    “Because of the intrigues that went on before the 2007 elections, PDP in its own wisdom decided to deregister a number of people. I made it clear to them that all over the world, parties do not deregister members, that is counter-productive.

    “You are supposed to encourage people to come to your party. The strength of a party is the number of registered members. Politicians want to be active. They are not like you and I who have alternatives. Some of these politicians do not have any means of livelihood except  politics. If you deregister these people, they will look for another platform.

    “So, it is not true that I sponsored Oshiomhole. He sponsored himself. He is an activist, he found an easy platform. I can categorically say that I did not vote for him. If I was sponsoring him, I would have voted for him. Neither did I campaign for him one day that he should be voted for.”

    Asked of the relationship between him and his estranged godfather, Chief Tony Anenih, he said he never had quarrel with the chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

    He added: “If you listened to me carefully, I told the truth about every situation and how Oshiomhole came on board. The quarrel was not between Anenih and myself. It was those that were playing the intrigues of 2007 elections. We were both used as pawns. We never quarrelled.”

    On the debate over tenure, Igbinedion said: “I think a single term of six years is good enough. Even if you stay there for 10 years, there is no way you can complete everything.”

    On whether he is relating with jailed ex-Governor James Ibori, Igbinedion said: “Definitely, I do.”

    “I explained my own aspect to you that Edo State does not have the resources to play with. I cannot speak for Delta State. Ibori is in a better position to answer that.”

  • Irebosa Igbinedion finds love

    Irebosa Igbinedion finds love

    IREBOSA, daughter of the former governor of Edo State, Chief Lucky Igbinedion, has been romantically linked with son of former Deputy Senate President, Ibrahim Mantu. Though the affair is still shrouded in secrecy, the younger Mantu, we gathered, has been spoiling the Igbinedion girl silly with cash and gifts.

    Busybodies swore that two years ago, the younger Mantu threw an exclusive birthday bash for Irebosa and it had in attendance silver spoons of their kind.

  • We planned our success strategies at nights – Igbinedion

    We planned our success strategies at nights – Igbinedion

    The Esama of Benin, Chief Gabriel Igbinedion, on Monday revealed that the secret of his successes was because he spent sleepless nights thinking.

    Igbinedion, who is father of Lucky, a former governor of Edo State, said the rewards for his sleepless nights were his business ventures in the state and across the country.

    He spoke shortly after the official opening of a multi-million cinema and entertainment centre built by Lucky.

    Chief Igbinedion said the centre could have been built in other parts of the world but for the love his family has for Edo people.

    “What a wonderful day. What a wonderful experience. Let me say one thing, the Igbinedion family has always been looking for ways to make the Edo people happy. We could have put this investment any other place around the world, but irrespective of tongue-wagging, we still mean well for Edo people. We will continue to lead while people follow.

    “When people are asleep, we are thinking, what next should we do to make people comfortable. This is one example. Each and every one of us has traveled out and as soon as you bring your children from anywhere, you can be rest assured there is no place that is better than this place. Therefore, the hand that created this place means well. You can now bring your children to an environment of security.

    “All of us will appreciate that you use this place to the glory of God. I am very happy today, this is one of my happiest days in life.”

    Lucky refused to comment but his wife, Eki said the place was built for relaxation and holistic enjoyment.