The former governor, who received a rousing welcome when he returned to Nigeria on Saturday after serving out his jail term in the UK, spoke through his Media Assistant, Mr Tony Eluemunor in a statement issued on Monday. Ibori also denied knowledge of a Twitter Account being rumoured to be operated by him.
The statement explained that though Ibori had wanted to land at Osubi Airstrip in Okpe Local Government Area of the state, he had to change his mind for the Benin Airport, to avoid gridlocks and a lock-down of economic activities his landing would have caused.
The statement reads:
“Ibori wishes to correct the impression created by some news reports that he was deported from the UK. Even though I had wanted to publicise my return to Nigeria so that wrong meanings would not be read into the public interest.
“I knew what my presence in Nigeria would elicit, and also because I never wanted any crowd that would gather because of me to disturb a single Nigerian in the course of their duties, all my efforts to keep the trip secret failed. The airline that brought me into Nigeria is public knowledge.
“So, it would be easy to verify that I was not deported because the deporting country’s officials would always hand over deportees to the Nigerian Immigration officials and documents would also be exchanged.
Those who have chosen to report lies, and claim that I was deported know that no document exists anywhere in the world to back up those malicious claims.”