Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has revealed former Governor of Delta State, James Ibori misappropriated $200 million but only returned $15 million out of the money. The incident happened when both Obasanjo and Ibori were in government between 1999 and 2007.
Obasanjo gave the revelation while addressing accusations levelled against him by the late former Governor of Bayelsa State, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha and Ibori that he is vindictive.
Addressing the accusation in an interview with Chude, the former President said,
“These people let them give chapter and verse. If Ibori has said it, I hope he has not but if you say he has said it, what happened to Ibori.
EFCC investigated Ibori and they found Ibori has misappropriated about $200 million. And they brought the report to me and I said, Ibori, come, look at the report. Assuming you have spent 50 million, go and give EFCC $150 million. Then he came back and said where should we put it? I said it’s your state money, give it to your state. He said how do I do that? Opened a Central Bank account for him which I did.
And then he came back and said if he just put money in the Central Bank account belonging to Delta, I should open Central Bank accounts for all states. I did.
Then he thought he was being clever, he took $15 million cash to Nuhu Ribadu and Ribadu came and I said put it in their account in the Central Bank. And then we still pursued it. So he was pursued up to London where he went to prison. So if that is vindictiveness, I will say let Nigeria have more of such vindictiveness. “
