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By Zik Zulu Okafor
It is of critical importance for the Federal Government of Nigeria, the Nigerian public and Idumuje-Ugboko indigenes the world over to note that until August 2015, Idumuje-Ugboko was a most peaceful community under his Royal Majesty, Obi Albert Nwoko III, PhD, MON. The crisis the modest village faces today started with the emergence of Prince Nonso Nwoko, the son of the king on the traditional leadership of the community.
It was the impunity and brazen havoc he introduced and instigated in the hitherto peaceful governance of the village that culminated in the horrifying mayhem of 18th to 25th May, 2017 in which two innocent lives were brutally terminated. These atrocious murders are now subjects of litigation in a Federal High Court, Abuja and a Chief Magistrate Court in Iselle-Uku.
All over the world, civilised people expect governments at state or national level where murder is committed to do everything within its legitimate powers to unravel the cause and perpetrators of such murder and bring the culprits to justice.
In the case of Idumuje-Ugboko today , we can say the Commissioner for Justice and Attorney General, AG of Delta state, Barrister Peter Mrakpor is doing the very opposite. The AG is not only meddling but taking every possible action to frustrate and terminate the trial of suspected murderers already found culpable and arraigned in court on Terrorism and Murder charges in Abuja and Asaba respectively.
These insidious and very condemnable actions of the Delta state AG, his alleged despicable collusion with sponsors of the suspected murderers to peddle lies and confuse the unsuspecting public about the facts of Ugboko crisis is why this piece became absolutely necessary.
Here is the genesis of the crisis.
On March 16, 2016, billionaire business magnate and International Lawyer , Hon Prince Ned Nwoko, through his company, Linas International Ltd, applied for 90 hectares of land for the establishment of a university to be known as STARS University and an International golf course. The application was directed to the king , His Royal Majesty, Obi Albert Nwoko III, who in turn summoned a meeting of his Obi- in-Council in April 2015 to discuss Linas application. This apex meeting of the top ranking chiefs resolved to convene an expanded meeting of the four federating villages known as Izu-Ani, the People’s Congress and the most powerful meeting of Ugboko community to take a decision.
The Izu-Ani held with the principal chiefs and the leadership of the elite Idumuje-Ugboko Development Union, IUDU, in attendance.
This meeting approved Linas application but rather than sell the land to Prince Ned and his Linas, the village opted to go into partnership with them. And at the end, Idumuje-Ugboko community was given 40% equity in the university while Linas and Ned held 60%. The king , Obi Nwoko III, subsequently wrote Linas on April 10th, 2015 to convey the decision of the community and Prince Ned accepted the partnership.
Despite this solid agreement , the President-General of IUDU, Benett Odor, on July 11, 2015, convened a meeting of major stakeholders to further discuss and interrogate the setting up of the university and golf course and Prince Ned was subjected to critical questions at this meeting. Fully convinced about the goodness of Prince Ned’s cause for Ugboko people and with land mapped out by the Land Committee, the IUDU on November 23, 2015 wrote to the Chairman of Aniocha North Local Government Area, LGA, to convey its support for the university project and the land allocated. It was after all these strenuous processes that the land was approved and Linas then applied and was issued with a Customary Right of Occupancy. So, the indisputable fact is that Prince Ned went through palpable and meticulous due process to acquire the land for the university and golf course .
Therefore, the current dubious quests to demonize a most civilised gentleman, Prince Ned, by the sponsors of Prince Nonso and Delta state government in the face of looming major murder trials will remain ineffectual because fact is fact and mud slinging and manipulation of police reports and the judiciary in Delta state can only be transient. Such acts that betray a people and subvert justice will never endure. It is common place that after darkness comes a glorious light of a new dawn.
WHAT THEN PROMPTED THIS UGBOKO CRISIS ?
Trouble reared its head in a very peaceful Ugboko when Prince Nonso came out with a letter dated August 12, 2015, purportedly written by his father denouncing the land given to Prince Ned and Linas. The king though old was alive and mentally alert. So, all that the village needed to do was to see him to verify the authenticity of the letter. But Prince Nonso held his father incommunicado, refusing anyone from seeing him. This led to a petition to the police on September 14, 2015 to investigate the credibility of the letter. The police after thorough investigations discovered the letter to be fake. Prince Nonso , Ejimofor Nwoko, Obiajulu Nwoko and their savage cohorts were arrested and arraigned in a Chief Magistrate Court 1, Asaba, in Suit No.SMC/420C/2016.
They have since jumped bail and remain fugitive of the law.
So, the genesis of Ugboko crisis was first and foremost the strange and retrogressive quest by Prince Nonso and his homicidal agents to stop a developmental initiative like a university that the owners duly acquired the land and a Customary Right of Occupancy.
It is important to note that the larger Royal Nwoko family did not support Nonso’s insipid plot to stop the university project because when he called a meeting to garner support for his sadistic venture, the whole family told him that a university in Ugboko is a good omen and a sure way to bring economic growth and development to the community.
But Nonso obstinately left them and went ahead to denounce the university project on the media. In this he was simply alone and seen as a sadist by the indigenous people of Ugboko.
Prince Nonso and his siblings would then approach a High Court in Iselle-Uku, Delta state, to challenge the decision of Ugboko people to allocate to Prince and Linas, the land for his university and the Aniocha North LGA for issuing them with Customary Right Occupancy , claiming the process of the land allocation was fraudulent. They lost this case woefully on 18th June, 2019 with a cost awarded against Nonso and the other Claimants.
The crisis spurred by Nonso’s sheer irrationality took the worst dimension when his father, HRM Obi Albert Nwoko III, passed on on February 6, 2017.
Nonso under confounding circumstances, against all Idumuje-Ugboko tadition, rites and rituals, buried his royal dad secretly and proclaimed himself king. And then all the principal chiefs , people who opposed his obnoxious self installation as the Obi became targets of the gale of ostracization, banishments and brigandage to follow.
Prince Kachido Anthony Nwoko in a recent Open Letter to the governor of Delta state, Dr Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa, captured the dangerous dimensions of Prince Nonso’s inordinate ambition and thirst for power by all means. Titled OPEN LETTER OVER UNFOUNDED ALLEGATIONS AGAINST ME AND THREATS TO ELIMINATE ME AND MY FAMILY,
Kachido Nwoko, who grew up in the palace and served Nonso’s father, the Obi till his eternal transition wrote , ” I am constrained to cry out and write this letter due to threats to kill me, my wife and children by Crown Prince, Chukwunonso Nwoko and his agents.” Kachido detailed how assassins suspected to be Nonso’s agents of death invaded his house in another community where he had been living with his wife and two children and how they managed to escape narrowly. Prince
Kachido however gave an account of the genesis of Nonso’s vile and villainous activities in his letter. In his words, ” I was living in the palace before the current crisis. The crisis began after the burial of the king in 2017 when his son, Prince Chukwunonso took over at the palace. One day I heard Prince Chukwunonso discussing over the phone , talking to someone about Prince Ned Nwoko. He was telling the person that they needed to banish him from the community. Afterward, he decided to summon Izu Ani …to tell them there is the need to banish Prince Ned Nwoko.”
Prince Kachido’s letter is a testament to what happened in Ugboko.
The fact therefore is clear that Prince Nonso’s heinous crimes against Prince Ned and those that supported the establishment of Stars University was an odious act of wickedness and not because of any illegal acquisition of land by Prince Ned. Does it make any sense or is it not absurd to claim that Prince Ned used his financial power to forcefully acquire the land for the university when the village, the owners of the land hold 40% equity in the same emerging institution that the land is used for. Where is the rationality ?
THE REIGN OF TERROR AND SAVAGE VIOLENCE
Prince Nonso wanted some semblance of dignity to his illegitimate status as Obi without a Staff of Obi. But both the Iyese, Chris Ogwu, the second in command to the Obi and the Odogwu, Chief Sunday Edumodu who is third in command and the other prominent chiefs stayed away from Nonso’s pseudo Izu Ani to avoid being haunted by the spirit of their ancestors in accordance with trado belief system. This decision was their crime. They were dubiously dubbed Prince Ned’s supporters by mischief makers who knew too well that these honourable men only made the tough choice not to lend their weight to an abhorrent and loathsome gathering .
They became marked men in Nonso’s world of violence. And on May 18th, 2017, Idumuje-ugboko was set aflame with horrific violence by cultists and hoodlums allegedly unleashed on chiefs, men and women who refused to endorse Nonso’s illegitimate reign. These men include the Iyese, the Odogwu and even some Nwoko family members.
Houses, cars and valuable properties were destroyed. People were maimed. Worse still , the terrorism which lasted for a week also claimed an innocent Okada rider who stopped in front of the palace, a popular spot motor cyclists stop to pick passengers. But Nonso’s alleged hoodlums took this innocent young man called Cyprian Kumiolun for a spy and instantly shot him. He died on the spot.
Kenneth Iloh, a prominent member of Ugboko community and Secretary of Land Allocation Committee was tortured in his own home until he lapsed into coma. He couldn’t come round, couldn’t survive it. He died.
These were clear cases of murder by cold blooded hoodlums allegedly sent by Prince Nonso. How then could anyone confuse these gruesome murder cases with anything concerning the university that the land was duly acquired with a Right of Occupancy.
Again Prince Kachido captured the emergence of these terrorists and their activities in his letter to Governor Okowa.
Said he, ” Before the rescheduled meeting day, ( Izu Ani ) , Prince Uwadiegwu Denis Nwoko, a younger brother of Prince Chukwunonso Nwoko called a young man named Cheka Okoye ( Alias Asaba ) to help him to organize and bring some powerful thugs to the palace for Izu Ani meeting…..Asaba went ahead and brought hardened cult boys numbering over 30 to the palace. They were quartered and fed in the palace throughout the days they stayed in Idumuje-Ugboko to implement the mayhem….”
On the 8th of May , 2018, the victims of this devastating violence hired the services of M.A Abdulraman and Associates Chambers to seek redress the injustice they suffered in their own homes. They had been abandoned and left to their fate but they couldn’t die in silence. The Chambers sent an SOS to the Inspector General of Police, IGP , in a letter dated February 8, 2017. A petition dated July 16, 2019 was also sent to the office of the Attorney General and Minister of Justice of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Office of the Human rights Commission of Nigeria seeking his intervention and investigation into human rights abuses in Ugboko and the murder of Cyprian Kumiolun, an innocent Okada rider brutally shot in front of the palace and the death of Kenneth Illoh due to the barbaric torture he suffered in the hands of Nonso’s agents of death.
PRINCE NONSO’S ARREST, ARRAIGNMENT AND DELTA STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL’S ATTEMPTS TO FRUSTRATE PROSECUTION OF MURDER CASES
On Friday, July 17, 2020 , police officers from the Delta state police command in Asaba, the state capital stormed Idumuje-Ugboko, arrested Prince Nonso and whisked him away to Asaba to answer questions arising from petitions by the family of Cyprian Kumiolun, the Okada boy shot dead in front of his father’s palace sometime between May 18 and 25, 2017 by hoodlums said to be acting on his order . The thugs were also alleged to have carted his body away in a wheel barrow and the body is yet to found by his family.
Prince Nonso was interrogated for 10 hours . But two suspects in the murder case had already made useful confessions that point in crystal terms to Nonso’s culpability . Having established a prima facie case of wilful murder the police on July 29, 2020 arraigned Nonso Nwoko, Obiajulu Nwoko, Ejimofor Nwoko and others at the Chief Magistrate Court , Iselle-Uku.
The Chief Magistrate F.Obonodo ordered that the accused persons be remanded in police custody.
But the Delta state Attorney General, Peter Mrakpor, would not accept that order. Well known to be an ally of Nonso’s main financier, Mrakpor that evening , after official hours summoned the Chief Magistrate to his house and ordered him to reverse himself. Obonodo therefore helplessly wrote another paper ordering the accused persons to be released to go home.
But Mrakpor did not stop there , he brazenly wrote the Assistant Chief Registrar II, Magistrate Court, Iselle-Uku to change his report that there was substantial evidence to prosecute the accused Nonso and his gang.
A letter from his office , the Ministry of Justice, with Ref No. DTMJ3/6/109205, dated August 13, 2020, signed by a certain Enyi J. N and directed to the Assistant Chief Registrar II, read in part, ” I am further directed to inform you that after a thorough perusal of the said case file, this office is of the opinion that there is no prima facie case of any offence disclosed against Obi Chukwunonso Nwoko, Prince Ejimofor Nwoko, Okey Ifejioku, Chetachukwu Okolo, Onyeisi Isuzor and Prince Obiajulu Richard Nwoko.” The letter adds , ” They should be released if still in custody. Please , note that this letter takes precedence over our earlier letter dated 12th August , 2020.”
Perhaps people of Ugboko, Deltans , Nigerians and indeed the global community need to know that the lawyer representing Prince Nonso and his loathsome accused persons Barrister Ekeme Okworiole , SAN, is a first cousin of Mrakpor, the Delta state AG, the man who came up with the incredulous report that there wasn’t any cogent evidence to prosecute Prince Nonso and his accused murderous squad. The AG’s mother and Okworiole’s mother are of same parents. Now, this was a case that a young man was shot dead in broad day light and the gunmen retreated with utmost impunity into the palace . And minutes later they emerged with a wheelbarrow to carry Cyprian’s corpse to an unknown destination while his motor bike was burnt. In broad daylight . But the AG couldn’t find any shred of evidence. And so he stated clearly that his incredulous report supersedes the initial report in which the defendants were found culpable. This was after forcing a Chief Magistrate not only to denounce his own order but to write a contradictory one inside Mrakpor’s house.
It was indeed muted that Gabriel Ogbechie, Nonso’s financier allegedly met the AG in the course of his desperate moves to rescue Nonso from facing pang of justice . The AG then promised to provide him a good lawyer that happened to be his own cousin for a case in a state that he is the chief law officer. This in terse language is a disdainful abuse of official position and crass violation of legal ethics.
But Mrakpor appears to be a desperate man, eager to please a supposed billionaire client, Ogbechie. So having fractured the case against Nonso and his tribe of suspected murderers, the financiers of Prince Nonso turned to Abuja to pressure the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Maitama. Their lawyer had written a deceptive letter to him to transfer to Asaba a case in his court in which these same murderous squad is facing terrorism charges . Titled, REQUEST FOR A TRANSFER OF CHARGE NO. FHC/AB/CR/11/2019 TO THE FEDERAL HIGH COURT, ASABA, BEING THE APPROPRIATE AND CONVENIENT FORUM FOR THE TRIAL OF THE DEFENDANTS IN LINE WITH SECTIONS 93 (1), 98 (1) AND 386 (1) OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE ACT, 2015, the Lawyer tried to persuade the jurist to transfer the case to Asaba so that Mrakpor could appear on the scene to give it his own jaundiced and clearly warped interpretation. But the Chief Judge was not impressed by the self-serving references and quotes from the Administration of Criminal Justice Act. The Judge appreciates the gravity of the case, he has a grasp of the atrocious crimes of the barbarous defendants. Therefore , he wouldn’t transfer the case to a court that could be influenced by an AG that was displaying crass obtrusive interest .
Unlike the perverted case of Asaba, Abuja is clear about the grievous crime that was gruesomely enacted in Ugboko and would not have any character that is sub- human in constitution to treat it with levity.
But perhaps the story that will regale the soul of the victims of the Ugboko mayhem and Prince Nonso’s atrocities is the soothing news that Mrakpor’s inhuman attempt to kill their case at the Magistrate Court has turned out an exercise in futility. This is simply so because their case had been transferred to a Federal High Court ,Abuja , before the AG completed his attempt to put a sword against the soul of justice. And the Federal High Court, Abuja certainly has jurisdiction over the case. So, as it is , both Ogbechie’s alleged millions of naira squandered to hire a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN and another whopping amount to make a state AG his messenger of shame have all gone up in smoke.
Prince Nonso and his suspected blood-letting clan therefore will have no place to hide. They will face fully the maximum weight of the law.
Trying to twist the facts, making jangling discords and promoting irritable falsehoods about a civilised internationally acclaimed lawyer and irrepressible negotiator, a man with a rare kind heart , Prince Ned Nwoko ,will not change anything. Sane people know that Hon Prince Ned’s only crime in all these clangours of hate is his decision to site a developmental project in his own community, a venture that any collective of humanbeings will celebrate with ecstasy. He is forever consoled by the timeless lesson that no matter how fast lies travel , truth, facts will always overtake them to the eternal delight of mankind. For the real Idumuje-Ugboko people, men of honour in that community, Prince Ned cannot be thanked enough. The effect of the university is already being felt even at this construction stage. The potential citadel of learning is already employing about 300 people on a daily basis. It is therefore not surprising that over 95% of Idiosyncrasies people unapologetically support the university project. For them , the very highly accomplished and distinguished Prince Ned remains a glowing symbol of a brand new hope and one man that has a special place in the pantheon of change agents.