Naija News Desk: EFCC Files Fresh N25b Fraud Charges Against Igbinedion, But Associates Say It Is Political

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

EFCC Files Fresh N25b Fraud Charges Against Igbinedion, But Associates Say It Is Political

Lucky Igbinedion

Chief Lucky Igbinedion, the former Governor of Edo State, has again been charged with corruption. This time, he will face a N25 billion fraud “trial” at the Federal High Court in Benin, the city where he began his political career, and where he ran a corruption bazaar for eight years.

But just as was the case in his first “trial” two years ago, Mr. Igbinedion is unlikely ever to see a prison cell as sources say the charges have political undertones and the event is aimed only at whipping Mr. Igbinedion back into line. Jonathan’s current Chief of Staff, Mike Oghadiome, was Mr. Igbinedion’s Deputy Governor when Edo State was being looted back into the pre-military era by the former Edo College student.

News Desk Naija has learned that Mr. Igbinedion is facing the hostility of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) establishment because of Abubakar Atiku; in the days before the presidential primaries where Jonathan eventually defeated him, Igbinedion secretly made his lavish Abuja and Benin homes available to former VP Atiku for meetings with South-South delegates.   As News Desk Naija previously reported, when Mr. Igbinedion was charged in 2007 with looting the state, the current chairperson of the EFCC, Farida Waziri, cut a deal with him to let him off the hook. In that episode, the Enugu High Court fined him a measly N3.5 million—less than a slap on the wrist considering that Mr. Igbinedion stole over N100 billion belonging to the state. After the judge read his ruling, Mr. Igbinedion casually paid the fine from his the trunk of his car, like a trader offering small change to a customer.   

At today’s court session where Igbinedion and his co-accused were conspicuously and ominously absent, the EFCC presented the charges against the former governor, his brother, Michael Igbinedion and another associate, Patrick Ehoedodin.   Mr. Igbinedion, whose Abuja estate is one of the biggest and most flamboyant personal residences in Africa, is accused of converting Edo State shares in African Bank worth $6.2 million. During his first term in office, he was one of those top Nigerians who illegally looted land in Abuja, and was so reported by the EFCC in its report of November 30, 2003. That report showed that Igbinedion bought or acquired plots 1375, 2445, 2446, 2447 and 2448 which he extended, merged and developed into his massive estate contrary to the existing law and regulations.

The new charges further allege that Igbinedion and his associates stole $300 million government funds to purchase the Sheraton Hotel in Benin City. He also owns vast properties in North America, Ghana and South Africa. As News Desk Naija has also previously reported, it was in one of his South African homes that he hosted the cream of the Nigerian political establishment to extravagant parties at last summer’s World Cup.   Ricky Tarfa, SAN, a lawyer in the legal pool of Abubakar Atiku, has been tapped by Atiku to defend defend Mr. Igbinedion.

“Igbinedion knows where many of the bodies are buried and how to exhume them” a political analyst told News Desk Naija in Abuja today, “so it is unrealistic to expect that should he ever choose to show up in that Benin City courtroom, he will fare worse than he did in Enugu.”