By Camillus Eboh
ABUJA (Reuters) - Police in Dubai have arrested former Nigerian state governor James Ibori, a political powerbroker wanted in connection with money-laundering allegations, the head of Nigeria's anti-graft agency said on Thursday.
Faridi Waziri, chairwoman of Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), said Ibori was taken into custody after an arrest warrant was issued by international police agency Interpol.
He is wanted for questioning in both Britain and Nigeria. It was unclear why Ibori was in Dubai.
"We are consulting on the next line of action, whether the Metropolitan Police will want him to stand trial there in London. We also have a case here pending against him," Waziri told reporters in Nigeria's capital Abuja.
Ibori, one of Nigeria's most influential and controversial politicians, is a member of the Elders' Committee of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) and was instrumental in the rise to power in 2007 of President Umaru Yar'Adua.
Yar'Adua died last week after a long bout of heart and kidney ailments. His deputy Goodluck Jonathan has since taken over as president, pledging to tackle corruption in one of the world's most tainted countries.
WANTED IN NIGERIA
Nigeria's anti-corruption police tried to take Ibori into custody last month to question him over allegations that 44 billion naira was looted from Delta state government coffers while he was governor from 1999 to 2007.
But a violent crowd prevented police from arresting him in his hometown in southern Nigeria.
Several of Ibori's associates are facing money laundering charges in Britain, where a court froze $35 million worth of his assets in August 2007 on suspicion they were the proceeds of corruption. Ibori has not been charged in that case.
Ibori has maintained the charges against him are born out of political rivalry at the heart of the PDP.
The EFCC charged Ibori in 2007 with looting more than $85 million during his eight-year tenure as governor of Delta, one of the three main oil-producing states in the southern Niger Delta region, but a court dismissed the charges in December.
The EFCC has said it will appeal.
Reuters Africa
