Chairman of the Senate Committee on Drugs, Narcotics, Financial Crimes and Anti-corruption, Senator Victor Lar has said that anti-graft agencies of the United Kingdom spent a total of £14m (N4 billion) on the conviction of a former governor of Delta State, Chief James Ibori, on April 17, 2012.
Senator Lar made this revelation while speaking during the 2015 budget defence session of agencies under his committee said “People are quick to celebrate the conviction of James Ibori in the UK (United Kingdom). The truth is that to secure Ibori’s conviction, a whooping sum of £14 million was expended.
“That is almost N4 billion, which is more than recurrent and capital budgets of all the anti-corruption agencies put together.”
Lar who noted that Nigeria did not bear any of the cost emphasised the need to reform the laws guiding the operations of Nigeria’s anti-graft agencies namely Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) so as to ensure more financial autonomy.