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Five months into his nearly five-year jail term, immediate past Delta State governor, Chief James Onanefe Ibori, is coming to terms with life as a prisoner in a foreign land as loneliness sets in.

Ibori’s visitors have thinned out, according to a report this morning in the authoritative Lagos-based Guardian newspaper.

The paper quoted a very close friend of Ibori as revealing to it in Lagos on Friday morning that Ibori had not been receiving many visits from his former colleagues in the corridors of power since being transferred away from the Wandsworth Prison to the moved to the more secure Long lartin prison in Worcestershire last month.

“His friends used to visit him, but since he was moved from where he used to be, it’s been difficult” for them to visit, The Guardian quoted the source as saying.

The last known high profile visits received by Ibori took place last Christmas when two former governors, one from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), of which he was a chieftain, and another from an opposition party, went to see him as he awaited trial.

News Express recalls that Ibori, who ruled Delta State from 1999 to 2007, was sentenced to 13 years by Southwark Crown Court, London, having pleaded guilty to ten counts of money laundering and conspiracy to defraud Delta State. He had fled Nigeria to Dubai in 2010 to escape arrest by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) but the move backfired as he was later arrested and extradited to the UK, where he was wanted for trial.

Ibori’s wife Nkoyo, his sister, Christine Ibie-Ibori, his mistress, Udoamaka Okoronkwo, and his lawyer, Mr. Bhadresh Gohil, had all been earlier convicted for money laundering by the Southwark Crown Court.

*Photo: Ex-Governor Ibori

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