Ibori loses UK appeal, £101.5m confiscation order stands

Former Delta State Governor James Ibori has failed in his latest attempt to reduce the £101.51 million he has been ordered to give up in the United Kingdom.

A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeal in London, made up of Andrew Popplewell, Simon Bryan and Nicholas Dean, threw out his challenge this week.

Ibori's lawyers had argued that part of the sum, an inflation top-up added to money held in his frozen bank accounts, was unfair. They said he could not earn anything on cash that was locked up, so he should not be charged as if it had grown. Had he won, the bill would have dropped by roughly £4.3 million.

The judges disagreed. They said the inflation adjustment is part of the law on valuing criminal proceeds, that the accounts were frozen because of the risk he would move the money, and that the long delay in the case was largely caused by his own resistance to the order.

Ibori, who governed Delta from 1999 to 2007, pleaded guilty in London in 2012 to fraud and money laundering and was jailed for 13 years. He returned to Nigeria in 2016. The final confiscation order was made in July 2023.