China teen seen as hero for killing local official

When Li Shiming was stabbed through the heart by a hired assassin, few of his fellow villagers mourned the local Communist Party official many say made their lives hell by seizing land, extorting money and bullying people for years.

Instead, villagers in the northern town of Xiashuixi have made Li's teenage killer something of a local hero. More than 20,000 people from the coal-mining area petitioned a court for a lenient sentence.

"I didn't feel surprised at all when I heard Li Shiming was killed, because people wanted to kill him a long time ago," said villager Xin Xiaomei, who says her husband was harassed for years by Li after the two men had a personal dispute. "I wanted to kill Li myself, but I was too weak."

The murder trial has again cast a harsh light on abuses of power by communist cadres and the frustration many ordinary Chinese feel with a one-party system that sometimes allows officials to run their districts like personal fiefdoms.

China's leaders have identified corruption as a threat to the country's progress, but an opaque political system dominated by the ruling Communist Party — which brooks no dissent — and the lack of an independent judiciary contribute to the problem.

Ibori’s Pyrrhic Victory in Asaba is Without Prejudice to the Case against Him and His Associates in London

The report of the infamous judgement of Justice Marcel Awokulehin (dismissing the 170-count indictment of James Ibori purportedly for lack of evidence) by the Associated Press on Thursday December 17, 2009 rightly condemned the complicity of the Nigerian government in high level corruption. According to the report, which was carried by many international news media, “Ibori represented an opportunity for Nigeria to hold to account government officials long criticized for lining their own pockets instead of helping the poor, especially in the restive Niger Delta. As an associate of Yar'Adua, he also stood as a test of the president's vow to crack down on corruption”.
“That widespread corruption led U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to lump Nigeria with Cuba this week as governments ‘able but unwilling to make the changes their citizens deserve’”, it concludes. Therefore, come 2010, which will be the 50th anniversary of Nigeria’s Independence from Britain, long suffering Nigerians, failed by their own government, will be looking up to the old colonial master for justice in this matter when the trials of Ibori’s wife Theresa Ibori, his mistress Udoamaka Okoronkwo, his sister Christine Ibori-Ibie, his former personal assistant Adebimpe Pogoson and his London-based solicitor Bhadresh Gohil for conspiracy to commit money laundering and money laundering restart at the Southwark Crown Court. Ibori’s conviction in Asaba would not have harmed the Crown’s case against his associates in London, which perhaps explains why the first set of trials was adjourned twice to allow the dithering Justice Awokulehin to deliver his judgment, but such a conviction is not required to prove the case against him and his associates. In his ruling in 2008 on the preparatory hearing on the admissibility of the evidence provided to the prosecution by the EFCC during Ribadu’s tenure, Judge Rivlin QC summarised the money laundering charges as follows:

Akwa Ibom State: $3.1 million “Etuk money” spills bad blood within government

The report of the $3.1 million money laundering involving the Akwa Ibom State Governor, Chief Godswill Akpabio, has created sharp division and suspicion within the state cabinet. Mrs. Emem Etuk, a Deputy General Manager, Victoria Island Branch (3) of Platinum Habib Bank (BankPHB) was arrested on 11 November 2009 by security operatives at the General Aviation Terminal of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos with $3.1 million suspected to belong to the Akwa Ibom State Governor.

Mrs. Etuk’s inability to offer a plausible explanation as to how she came about such a huge amount, or her mission, led to the escalation of the case to the Police Force headquarters in Abuja after she had been detained in Lagos for two weeks. Details of the financial scandal were unknown until SaharaReporters’ revelation earlier this week. Following our exposé, the governor’s agent, one "Centre for Media and Development" has issued a statement defending the governor and dismissing the link between the scam and the governor. Assuming the role of the police and the court, the Magnus Eze-led group submitted that their own investigations had exonerated the governor and that the money was meant for 2009 hajj pilgrims. SaharaReporters can reveal however that whereas the airlift of pilgrims started on 25 October, by 11 November when Mrs. Etuk was arrested, most pilgrims had departed and all travel plans had been concluded. Sources in Government House, Uyo, revealed that the Governor, who became disturbed about how the matter broke in the media after he had successfully suppressed the incident for four weeks following its occurrence, has ordered a secret investigation to unravel those who leaked the information to the press.

Na only Ibori steal money?

The highlight of the drama that is the Ibori trial at Southwark County court, South East London occurred when a lady, who claimed to be a family of the Iboris’, came to the public gallery and rained curses on Nigerians shouting: "what is the business of you people (Nigerians) in London to come to court, Na only Ibori steal money? You Nigerians will die in poverty"! That woman’s query "na only Ibori steal money”, got me wondering; how did Ibori, of all the big time crooks in Nigeria manage to turn into the bogey man of the Nigeria polity and came to epitomise all that is wrong with Nigeria?
Nigerians used to associate the evil genius, IBB, with all that is evil, but it appears Ibori and Aondoakaa have dethroned IBB from the throne as our national symbol of hate.
It used to be that Nigerians- and indeed people of other lands - used to heap the multitude of their national problems at the feet of the person at the helm of affairs. Ex-head of state, Ibrahim Babangida used to say that a Nigerian villager whose goat suffered abortion would blame IBB.
But in the case of Yar’adua, many Nigerians seemed willing to agree with BERTH OBI, a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), that Yar'Adua is simply a good man working with bad people.

"As Ibori Launders and Lies"

Desperate, the established serial thief who was once governor of Delta State, James Ibori, is well underway in his character-laundering scheme, a project Saharareporters forewarned Nigerians about on September 23 2009.One of Ibori’s main themes is also to smear the name of Saharareporters, as if that will make him appear to be innocent. Ibori told a TV Continental interviewer in Lagos last Saturday, for instance, that his multiple convictions for stealing and dishonesty in London are only from the imagination of Saharareporters.This is proof that the Ibori is also a serial liar. But by choosing this approach, he gives us an opportunity to remind Nigerians of how early his life of crime began, and remind Ibori himself that the court of public opinion is based not on conjecture, but on facts. If Ibori has become a symbol of greed and corruption in Nigeria, it is from the work of his own heart and his own hands.