$15m Ibori money for PDP 2007 elections –Claimant

The battle between the Federal Government and the Delta State Government over which of them has the right to claim the $15m cash allegedly received by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission as bribe money from former governor, James Ibori, took a strange twist on Wednesday as a new claimant laid claim to the money.

The claimant, Chibuike Achigbu, told an Abuja Federal High Court that the sum was actually monetary donations pulled together by a group of unnamed businessmen to fund the campaign of the Peoples Democratic Party in 2007.

Achigbu told the court that the cash had nothing to do with Ibori, or any attempt to bribe the EFCC.

He said he actually handed the $15m cash to Dr. Andy Uba, then a presidential aide but currently a serving Senator, with instructions to invite the EFCC to investigate, and certify that the campaign fund was accumulated honestly and in good faith, before it could be donated to the PDP, in line with financial regulations guiding campaign donations.

He said it was from Uba that the EFCC received the money, as confirmed by an affidavit deposed by the Delta State Government in the suit where it laid claim to the money.

Achigbu, who said he is a businessman with substantial investment in the oil and gas industry, further told the court that the two parties laying claim to the cash-the Federal Government and Delta State – had nothing to do with the money and as such, have no right to have it forfeited to them.

Achigbu’s application, in which he asked the court to join him in the battle for the controversial $15m, was filed on his behalf by a high profile legal team that included three Senior Advocates of Nigeria, namely, Chief Adeniyi Akintola, Okey Amaechi, and A. J. Owonikoko.

In an affidavit in support of the motion for joinder, the deponent, one David Alao, a Litigation Assistant in the law firm of Messrs Synergy Attornies, narrated the grounds on which Achigbu is claiming the cash.

Achigbu was described as the intervener/applicant in the affidavit.

He said, “Achigbu further determined a base global figure as a target he needed to make to pool necessary funds together before making donations to identified recipients of the PDP throughout the federation. The figure arrived at came to approximately N3bn only.

“The project was thereafter exposed to Achigbu’s business friends and associates within Nigeria who might be favorably disposed to support it.”

According to the deponent, it was in order to legitimately apply the fund that Achigbu approached Andy Uba, to invite the EFCC to “investigate and certify that the funds were accumulated honestly and in good g faith” before it could be donated to the PDP.

Achigbu said he “was advised to deliver the fund for onward transmission to the EFCC, being the agency of the Federal Government sufficiently equipped to give a clean bill of legitimacy to the fund before it could be donated to the cause intended.”

The deponent added that it was after the money had been delivered to Uba that Achigbu heard rumors of an attempt by Ibori to bribe the EFCC, in a bid to influence investigations against him.

The deponent further explained that Achigbu was further thrown into the dark as he lost access to Uba after the latter was elected as Anambra State governor.

The deponent added that Achigbu and Uba had since been estranged on account of the disappearance of the money.

The deponent told the court that when “Achigbu and Uba spoke for the first time in a long while on August 27, 2012, when Uba called to inform him of the re-appearance of the missing money in the form of the alleged $15m being claimed by the Federal Government.

In the said conversation, Uba reportedly told Achigbu that the $15m forfeited to the Federal Government by the Abuja FHC was indeed the same money he handed over to the EFCC, through Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde, now boss of the anti-graft agency but then Director of Operations.

Meanwhile, an Abuja FHC on Wednesday dismissed a suit in which a lawyer, Mr. Timipa Okponipere, claimed that the $15m be returned to Delta State.

The lawyer had claimed that he filed the suit for and on behalf of the people and government of Delta State, but when the matter came up on Wednesday, Delta State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Chief Charles Ajuyah, SAN, disowned the suit, saying he did not authorise the action.