IBORI OWNS 30 PERCENT SHARES IN OANDO – PROSECUTOR

Jailed former Governor of Delta State, Chief James Onanaefe Ibori, owned 30 percent shares in Nigeria’s oil company, Oando Plc. Ibori was quoted to have told told a Swiss private bank in 2004 that he owned 30 percent in the oil firm, which paid $1.2 million into his account that year, a prosecutor told a British court today.

The court was also informed that that PKB Privatbank had in an internal document likened Ibori to a scion of the Kennedy dynasty in the United States.

Ibori is currently serving 13 years jail term in Britain after pleading guilty in February 2012 to 10 count charge of fraud and money-laundering worth 50 million pounds ($79.5 million). Prosecutors say his total wealth was likely to be far greater than that.

Reuters reported that details of Ibori’s assets and how he kept them hidden from the public gaze through a web of shell companies and foreign bank accounts are being disclosed as part of a three-week confiscation hearing which began in London on Monday.

Recal that officials of Oando had claimed in Lagos that Ibori only owned insignificant proportion of the oil firm.