Former Delta State governor, Chief James Onanefe Ibori, on Tuesday assured that he would return to Nigeria very soon.
Speaking outside Court 5, before Mr. Justice Garnham on Tuesday, he told BBC’s Mark Eastman that he was planning to appeal his conviction and return to Nigeria.
Asked how soon the return journey would be, he said “as soon as possible, may be in a matter of days.”
A statement by Tony Eluemunor, his Media Assistant, said Ibori was mobbed by a large number of Nigerians who were in court to identify with him in his travails.
“He shook hands with many of them, exchanging pleasantries,” the statement added, stressing that “dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s in briefing his lawyers may be the only thing standing between Ibori now and his journey to Nigeria.
“For instance, there will be mention of the Ibori London case this week Friday at the Southwark London Court for the Judge to be fully informed on what is happening with the disclosure process and to ascertain if everybody convicted in the Ibori and related cases will be appealing.”
In London on Tuesday, Ibori again clinched another victory as Mr. Justice Garnham ruled against an attempt by the British Secretary of State for the Home Office to either the Queen’s Bench Division or the Crown Court.
Ibori’s lawyers, Eluemunor explained, had argued that this was a delay tactic by the Crown, following which the Judge insisted that the case remains in his Royal Court of Justice.
“The case before the court on Tuesday was to determine the amount of money Britain will pay Ibori as compensation for the illegal detention he was subjected to when the British Prisons did not allow him to leave on the exact day his prison sentence ended in December last year, but detained him unlawfully and illegally by a day, while even seeking for ways to further deny him his freedom by locking him up illegally,” the statement added.
Early March, the two sides in the matter will make their final statements and the amount of damages to be awarded to Ibori would be decided.
Meanwhile, Ibori told Reuters also on Tuesday in London, he does not intend to quit politics anytime soon.
According to him, “what happens in African politics – you are in it until you die.”
“I am a politician, I will always be a politician. I play the politics in my party and in my country for the good of my people,” he said after the court hearing.