{"id":10015,"date":"2012-04-18T04:20:29","date_gmt":"2012-04-18T02:20:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/04\/corrupt-nigerian-governor-gets-13-year-uk-jail-term\/"},"modified":"2012-04-18T04:20:29","modified_gmt":"2012-04-18T02:20:29","slug":"corrupt-nigerian-governor-gets-13-year-uk-jail-term","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/corrupt-nigerian-governor-gets-13-year-uk-jail-term\/","title":{"rendered":"Corrupt Nigerian governor gets 13-year UK jail term"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Ibori rose from petty thief to powerful state governor<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Stole unquantified millions during eight years in office<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Efforts to hold him to account in Nigeria were thwarted<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Estelle Shirbon<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>LONDON, April 17 (Reuters) &#8211; A British court sentenced the<br \/>\nformer governor of a Nigerian oil state to 13 years in prison on<br \/>\nTuesday after he pleaded guilty to embezzling 50 million pounds<br \/>\n($79 million) in one of the biggest money-laundering cases seen<br \/>\nin Britain.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>A founding member and key power-broker of Nigeria&#8217;s ruling<br \/>\nparty, James Ibori is the most prominent Nigerian politician to<br \/>\nbe successfully prosecuted for the corruption that has held back<br \/>\nAfrica&#8217;s most populous nation and top oil producer for decades.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>He pleaded guilty to 10 charges of fraud and<br \/>\nmoney-laundering committed during his eight years as governor of<br \/>\nDelta State, an impoverished maze of mangrove creeks and<br \/>\npipelines ravaged by years of armed conflict over access to oil<br \/>\nmoney.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;During those two terms (as governor) you turned yourself in<br \/>\nvery short order indeed into a multi-millionaire through<br \/>\ncorruption,&#8221; Judge Anthony Pitts told Ibori at the end of a<br \/>\ntwo-day sentencing at Southwark Crown Court in London.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Pitts said it was one of the biggest money-laundering cases<br \/>\nseen and that the 50 million pounds Ibori had admitted to<br \/>\nstealing may be a &#8220;ludicrously low&#8221; fraction of his total booty.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* Ibori rose from petty thief to powerful state governor * Stole unquantified millions during eight years in office * Efforts to hold him to account in Nigeria were thwarted By Estelle Shirbon LONDON, April 17 (Reuters) &#8211; A British court sentenced the former governor of a Nigerian oil state to 13 years in prison [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-10015","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10015\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}