Daily Independent Online.
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Friday, July 02, 2004.
Ibori will be vindicated, says aide
By Tunke-Aye Bisina
Reporter, Asaba
Senior Special Assistant to Governor James Ibori on
Media Relations, Mr. Abel Oshevire, on Thursday advised the people of Delta
State not to be worried about the ongoing proceedings at the Abuja High Court
over allegations that the governor was an ex-convict.
Oshevire
told journalists that the governor was not surprised at the testimony of the
Judge of the Bwari Court Abuja, Awwal Yusuf, because what he said was nothing
different from “what he has been saying.”
The governor, he stated, would come out clean at the
end of the day and be vindicated because he had never stood trial at any court
of law in his life, adding that his detractors would be disappointed as truth
would prevail in the end.
“Ibori never stood trial before him or any
court in the country or any where in the world. He is innocent of all the
charges that were politically motivated,” he said.
Yusuf had while being led in evidence by Chief Gani
Fawehinmi (SAN) on Wednesday at the Abuja High Court testified that he
convicted a James Ibori in 1995, alleging that the governor even attempted
bribing him with N10 million to cover up the case.
However, residents of Asaba were indifferent to the
reports of the testimony as contained in the Thursday’s newspapers as
they went about their businesses and work except for few persons at the
newspaper distribution centres who were seeing discussing the subject.
Some senior aides of the governor, including his
Political Adviser, Chief Ighoyota Amori, refused to comment on the
court’s proceedings.
The
allegation that the governor was an ex-convict started gaining momentum shortly
before his re-election but his party, the People’s Democratic Party
(PDP), unconvinced about the allegation, went ahead to present him for the
election, which he won landslide.
