The extraordinary story of how a former cashier at a Wickes DIY store became governor of a Nigerian state and embezzled £50 million to live “like royalty” was set out before a packed courtroom today.
No doubt the usual suspects will be telling us how this shows we must crack down on offshore as he did indeed stash the money offshore.
However, given that he\’s currently in court for sentencing for the thefts it would appear that we can catch them without cracking down on offshore.
Under Nigerian law, Ibori was immune from prosecution during his two terms as governor,
Might be worth changing that part of the Nigerian code though….
“Ibori was immune from prosecution during his two terms as governor”
I seem to remember a similar rule in Italy.
And don’t EU staff have various immunities from prosecution? Wasn’t there something last year about the German tax authorities wanting to prosecute an MEP for tax evasion, but being unable to? (Unless of course you expose EU corruption, in which case your immunity is stripped faster than Strauss-Kahn’s chambermaid)
Whenever you grant immunity from prosecution for a specific class of individuals (diplomats, UN, EU, French Presidents, etc.), you create a problem of prosecution.
No-one should have immunity from prosecution, ever.
This would make US diplomatic personal a little more cautious when they start waving their guns around on Pakistani streets.
Equally, it would save a vast amount of police manpower each year over diplomatic staff (especially from the Middle East) behaving as they do back home and then having to be shuttled out of the country on a flight to Dubai before the press find out.
There might be a case for heads of state and ambassadors with credentials overseas, but that is about it.
It was the UN that started this wholesale immunity from prosecution thing and it is just a license to ride roughshod over the rights of the little people.
The fact that this tends to happen elsewhere rather than the UK is irrelevant.
Even if someone is genuinely going in to politics to make a difference it doesn’t make them right or even desirable – see Westminster’s latest addition.
This is hardly surprising. Embezzlement is not a sackable offence for anybody in Nigeria according to the law. So you can find one of your employees neck-deep in corruption but cannot sack him. Aren’t unions wonderful?
They probably need to keep that or what is to stop the local prosecutor choosing the Govenor by the simple expedient of prosecuting ones he doesn’t like?
Strikes me as a sensible rule for immature democracies. If he can get a majority to say he should run the place and be immune for four years, just go with it.