What is the problem with Jim Nwobodo?

What the hell is the problem with Jim Ifeanyichukwu Nwobodo, former governor of old Anambra state, former minister of sports, and former senator of the Federal Republic (of Nigeria)? Is it old age (senility), or just a case of political ‘jobbing’-for which some of our rudderless politicians are noted?

Senator Nwobodo is, for the second time in just one year, assuring incumbent governor of Enugu state, Barrister Sullivan Chime, a second term ticket. Not up to six months he declared that there would be no need for a governorship election in the state come 2011 following what he described as Chime’s ‘superlative’ performances, Nwobodo, again, on Sunday December 29, during a thanksgiving service for his conferment of the national award of Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON), said Chime’s second term was a forgone conclusion. Senator Nwobodo explains that his curious crusade’ is borne out of Chime’s ‘commitment to the total restoration of peoples’ hope in governance in less than two years of his assumption of office’.

According to Nwobodo, “The government of Sullivan Chime is a blessing to people of Enugu State. Based on what he is doing now, his second term is assured”. It has to be pointed out that Nwobodo’s on-going second term campaign for Chime is despite the fact that Chime is still in the second year of his current tenure, and still has over two more years to concentrate and deliver democracy dividends to over two million people of Enugu people.

Actually, KlinReports does not see anything wrong with Senator Nwobodo supporting Chime, especially, if his (Chime)’s government has done well so far. But the point is that Nwobodo is taking his support to a ridiculous pavement. Or, is he not?

We view Senator Nwobodo’s pronouncements on Chime’s second term as undemocratic. For saying there would be no election in Enugu state simply because, in his opinion, Chime is doing well is, by implication, a violation of a section of the Nigerian constitution which prescribes four year term for state governors. That is, Senator Nwobodo is suggesting that the constitution be hauled into the Atlantic Ocean as long as Governor Chime (and a second term ticket) is concerned. Nwobodo is, also, suggesting that the Independent National Election Commission (INEC) should not conduct any election in Enugu state come 2011 because Governor Chime is doing well.

Because Senator Nwobodo finds himself ingratiated by Governor Chime, individual differences and opposing views should go to hell and burn to ashes. Because the elder statesman is consumed in his ‘Chime-for-second-term’ crusade, he has chosen to shut his eyes towards other views on Chime’s administration of the state.

It is irritating enough that Nwobodo sees achievement only from the prism of road reconstruction, prompt payment of workers salaries and release of monthly allocations from the federation account to local councils in the state. Are all these not part of a government’s responsibility to the people?

Nwobodo knows that, apart from extravagance (as reflected in his second marriage sometime ago), the opposition accuses Chime of not being transparent with his government’s road contracts. For instance, how much has his administration spent on reconstructing these roads so far? How much does a kilometer road cost to reconstruct? Does the amount tally with the Federal Ministry of Works rates for road construction/reconstruction projects? But Chime government would prefer not to be asked these ‘stupid’ questions. As such, the cost of the contracts, which Nwobodo has been making a hell of noise about, remains mired in secrecy.
There are views that 98 per cent of the work so far done by the Chime administration is concentrated in just three local government areas of the state namely, Enugu East, Enugu North and Enugu South respectively. That is, one senatorial zone! What this means the government’s presence is yet to be felt in the remaining 14 councils of Udi, Awgu, Nkanu East, Nkanu West, Ezeagu, Isi-Uzo, Oji River, Aninri, Igboeze South, Igboeze North, Nsukka, Uzo-Uwani, Udenu and Igbo-Etiti.
While roads in Enugu are wearing a new look, those in rural communities are practically impassable. Apart from Awgu and Inyi communities where electricity supply was restored after years of darkness caused by pipeline vandalism, several rural communities in the state are still without electricity supply. Of course, the rural populace lacks adequate health facilities. For instance, in Udi and Nkanu West councils where the Governor and Senator Nwobodo respectively come from, the natives still trek as much as 30 kilometers to have access to health centre or drug dispensary. Facilities in public schools in rural areas are, also, in a state of dilapidation, and the state-owned tertiary institutions are not faring better.
Worse hit is the Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT) which is, at the moment, being threatened by the National University Commission (NUC) with closure over non-accreditation of most of its courses.
The economies of the rural communities, which are predominantly agrarian in nature, remain very weak with inadequate incentives to farmers by the government. When the Chime administration came on board in June of 2007, it flagged off an agricultural revolution with the distribution of tractors to farmers and provision of revolving loans. It, however, took a few months for the agricultural revolution to fizzle out, with very little or nothing heard of it.
Though Chime donated eight Mitsubishi trucks to the state Water Corporation, portable water remains a problem to the residents and indigenes of the Coal-City state.
But from his utterances, Senator Nwobodo is not interested in these stark realities starring his Enugu people in the face. For all the former governor cares, contrary views on the performance of Chime’s administration are nonsensical. One thinks that Nwobodo, as an elder statesman, should be more pre-occupied with assisting Chime achieve even development of the state through fatherly counseling, not flattering him out of proportion to its simplicity.
It can be seen that Chime has shut out many productive politicians from the governance of the state, yet Nwobodo sees nothing wrong with this exclusion. Chime has been at daggers-drawn with his predecessor, Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani who facilitated his emergence as governor, yet Nwobodo is yet to sincerely call for a truce between the twosome.
By his repeated unilateral endorsement of Chime for a second term, is Senator Nwobodo saying that, without Chime, Waawa Land has no other son to govern the state, even better? What a shame!
KlinReports certainly thinks there are more to Nwobodo’s political acrobat than meets the ordinary eye. It is either the aging politician is looking for contracts in Chime government, or that he is lobbying for a political position, not for himself, but for his son, Dr. Ifeanyichukwu Nwobodo (Jr), or both. No more. No Less. But Nwobodo should go about this new past time of his with decorum.

Enugu's corrupt police command

Professor Dora Akunyili, newly appointed information minister, is very sad. Akunyili, hitherto Director General of National Agency for Food and Drug Administration (NAFDAC), is moody because of treachery of the Nigeria police (in particular, Enugu state command, headed by Mr. Sanni Magaji) to arraign a god father of a kidnap syndicate in Enugu, Chief Hyacinth Nnubia. Nnubia is a wealth oil dealer resident in Enugu, and his kidnap syndicate is said to have terrorized people of the southeast geopolitical zone for a long time now.

In particular, Chief Nnubia’s syndicate, on December 1, 2008, kidnapped Professor Akunyili’s younger brother, Dr. Paul Edemobi. The gang abducted Edemobi on the fateful day at No. 10B Savage Crescent, GRA, Enugu where he runs a Non-Governmental Organization called Paul and Grace Foundation. Of course, the kidnap was for ransom, as the bandits demanded a N50 million ransom for his release. Akunyili said she was the actual target of the kidnappers, but they had to settle for her brother when they did not see her.

But in a spectacular rescue operation, following a tip-off, the police smashed the kidnap gang at their hideout in Enugu town, and rescued Edemobi. It was learnt that while the leader of the gang was killed in the rescue operation, two of his colleagues were arrested.Residents and indigenes of the southeast states developed goose pimples when one of the arrested kidnappers, still undergoing medical treatment, sang to the police, implicating Chief Nnubia in their several kidnap exploits and other crimes. The singing kidnapper volunteered that Nnubia was their god-father and patron, who had been providing them with the logistics for their ungodly assignments. It has to be pointed out that Chief Nnubia’s syndicate had been using Enugu as a base from where they carried out their kidnap activities across other southeast states of the country.

But a curious twist was to creep into the story when several weeks after the kidnappers were, alongside Chief Nnubia, nabbed, the police is yet to bring the culprits to justice.

Chief Nnubia had initially fled Enugu on hearing that his devilish deals had blown open, only to hand himself in when his wife and some members of his house-hold were, in his stead, hauled into police detention. Since then, Enugu police command had remained economical with the truth over their investigation of Nnubia’s involvement in Edemobi’s kidnap, and, indeed, other cases of kidnaps in the area.

It was gathered that Chief Nnubia’s kidnap syndicate was was, also, involved in assassinations. In fact, confessions of the nabbed kidnappers were said to have included the brutal murder of Igwe Mathew Uche Chukwuka, traditional ruler of Obe-Uno autonomous community in Nkanu West Local Government Area of Enugu state. Igwe Chukwuka was abducted from his MacRoyal Hotel, off Presidential Road, Enugu on Saturday November 29. The following day, his bullet-ridden corpse was discovered dumped by his abductors at the outskirts of the town. Shockingly, Nnubia’s men confessed to Igwe Chukwuka’s dastard murder!

KlinReports is, as it were, in possession of information that the oil magnet has paid several millions of naira to Magaji, the state police commissioner, as well as to the rank and file of police in the state in order to forestall his parade before members of the public for the crime. As a convention, smashed kidnap or armed robbery gangs in Nigeria are paraded before the public before they are, eventually, arraigned in court over their crimes. But Chief Nnubia’s case is, inexplicably, different!

Our information is that it is as a result of Chief Nnubia’s ‘settlement’ to Compol Magaji and his men that the command has been playing hide and seek with the people over the matter. And to justify the suspicion, the command secretly took Chief Nnubia to court with wrong charges on Christmas eve, but the court session was aborted with the intervention of Barrister Sullivan Chime, governor of Enugu state, who insisted on the law taking its course. Chime insisted that justice must not be short-circuited in his state. KlinReports learnt that, having been ‘heavily’ compromised by Chief Nnubia, the police stealthily prepared charges to facilitate his release on bail by the court. The arrangee arraignment was to enable Nnubia, an indigene of Anambra state, to celebrate Christmas with his kith and kin.

KlinReports learnt that Chime directed his Attorney General, Nduka Ikenyi (Esq), to, without further delay, prepare appropriate charges for Chief Nnubia and members of his kidnap syndicate. Ikenyi had already drafted the charges, and sent to Eze O. Eze, the state’s Director of Public Prosecution for legal opinion. It is hoped that any moment from now, Chief Nnubia will face judgment over his atrocious deeds. If convicted, Chief Nnubia will, of couse, be headed for jail for life!

But Professor Dora Akunyili remains pissed off with the attitude of Magaji’s command.

“I don’t even know what to say. It is such a shame! It is such a shame. What can we do? I don’t want to talk about it because we went through a terrible period. It was too traumatic”, Akunyili retorted when KlinReports asked her to comment on the police compromise saga.

It is an old story that Nigeria police is one of the most corrupt in the world. If not for the timely intervention of Governor Chime, maybe, the sheik would have, by now, been throwing banquets and working free in the streets.

KlinReports, therefore, enjoins Governor Chime to continue to pursue this matter to its logical conclusion, to ensure that Chief Nnubia and his co-travelers in heinous crimes in Igbo land do not continue to evade the long arms of the law. We, also, call on the police high command in Nigeria to launch a high powered probe into this compromise mess of its men in Enugu command. So doing will go a long way towards sanitizing our society, distorted and disorientated by our warped value system. The time is now!

Abia state's Lawless Governor

Scores of angry members of Abia state chapter of Action Congress, on December 10, staged a peaceful protest round the streets of Umuahia, the state’s capital, over the refusal of Theodore Orji government in the state to enforce a tribunal judgment declaring their party man, Dr. Christian Nwachukwu Okoli, winner of this year’s (January 19, 2008) local government election in Aba South council.

Aba South is one of the most populous and richest local government areas in the state. The election tribunal, chaired by John Ukpai, a chief magistrate, had, ruling on a petition brought before it by Okoli earlier on November 6, set aside the election of Chief Clement Okezie Erondu and Chika Emeri of the People’s Progressive Alliance (PPA) as Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the council.

According to the tribunal, Erondu was fraudulently declared winner even when it was glaring that Okoli got majority of lawful votes cast at the poll and legally declared at the collation centre. The tribunal affirmed that the result used in declaring Erondu as winner of the election on the state radio, Broadcasting Corporation of Abia (BCA), was ‘manufactured’. According to a result which the tribunal upheld as authentic and comprehensive, Okoli polled 13, 217 votes while Erondu scored 8, 729.
Other members of Ukpai’s tribunal included Okey Nwamuo and King Abba-Abba.

The tribunal, subsequently, ordered appropriate authorities in the state to swear in Okoli and Chijioke Wogu as duly elected chairman and vice chairman of the council respectively. Part of the judgment directed the state Independent Electoral Commission (ABSIEC), headed by Professor S.O Emejuiwe, former university vice chancellor, to issue the duo of Okoli and Wogu certificate of return as duly elected.

Unfortunately, the foregoing orders of the three-man tribunal seemed ignored by Orji government, even despite the vacation of a curious order for stay of execution of the judgment.


It was as a result of the snub that the placard-carrying Action Congress demonstrators, led by its state chairman, Chief Obi Aham, marched to both the Government House and headquarters of the state Independent Electoral Commission (ABSIEC) in Umuahia. But the protesters were refused audience by the duo of Governor Orji and Professor Emejuiwe, the commission’s chairman.

The placards carried by the protesters had inscriptions such as: Swear in AC Candidate Now; AC Says ‘No’ to Injustice; Aba South Needs Macro; Governor T.A Orji, Obey Rule of Law; AC Demands Justice, and Odiuko Leave T.A Orji Alone’ amongst others.

The contention of the demonstrators is that, by the tribunal’s verdict, the incumbent council chairman, Erondu, ought to have immediately vacated office for Okoli. But that did not happen, as Erondu had, since then, sat tight, ostensibly, with the tacit support of the PPA government in the state.

AC’s contention that her candidate ought to have been sworn into office immediately finds expression in the provisions of Section 215 Sub-Section 1 of Abia State Local Government Law No. 2 of 2006. And the law states: “If the Election Tribunal shall have determined that a candidate returned as elected was not duly elected, then any candidate declared by the election tribunal as elected, shall from the time of the decision of the Election Tribunal be deemed to be duly elected until any determination of the competent High Court to the contrary on appeal”.

The explanation of the state’s electoral commission over its foot-dragging in not immediately issuing a certificate of returns to Okoli as ordered by the tribunal, did not even go down well with Ukpai’s tribunal itself. Ukpai said the explanation was not tenable. While ruling against the strange motion for stay of execution, Ukpai cited Sub-Section 2 Section 215 of the law which, in the main, provides that any candidate declared winner by the tribunal must, first and foremost, be sworn into office whether there is any pending appeal on the verdict or not. What this, as a matter of fact, means is that if the appeal succeeds, the winner of the case at the tribunal level will automatically vacate office for the successful appellant. Put differently by the tribunal, pendency of an appeal does not act as stay of execution of the particular judgment.

There are, however, fears of a constitutional crisis following refusal of the state government to comply with the verdict of state’s local government election tribunal. To this effect, a group, Forum of Solicitors and Advocates for Good Governance, calls on Governor Orji to, without further delay, swear the AC candidate, Okoli, into office in compliance with the judgment.

“We do not think that Dr. T.A Orji, a core beneficiary of the rule of law, can now turn around and shun, spite or disregard, with glaring impunity, the same rule of law. Dr. T.A Orji should not continue to disobey court order and we strongly hope he doesn’t”, the statement, signed by Gabriel Birikambiri (Esq), President, submits.

The Forum recalls that the ruling People’s Democratic Power (PDP) had to relinquish two governorship seats in Anambra and Edo states respectively in compliance with court judgments, wondering why PPA government in Abia would find it difficult to vacate an ordinary local government chairmanship seat in accordance with an order of court.

The Forum recalls that Orji Uzor Kalu, former governor of the state, had fiercely lampooned former President Olusegun Obasanjo for his habitual disrespect for the rule of law, and adds that “Now Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu is the Chairman, Board of Trustees of PPA which is now disrespecting rule of law, neglecting the judiciary, and disobeying court orders”.

Describing his legal successes as the handiwork of work and democracy, Okoli calls on the state government to quickly facilitate his assumption of office as Chairman of Aba South council.

Also speaking, Nnamdi Iro, AC candidate of Federal House of Representatives in Ohafia-Arochukwu constituency, hails the tribunal’s judgment, and similarly calls on the state government to speedily resolve the impasse delaying Okoli’s swearing in. Iro is, on his part, currently on appeal against the refusal of the lower court to declare him winner of his own election. Iro was reportedly robbed of his mandate despite the fact that he scored the highest number of votes in the election.

With the tribunal judgment, Abia state chapter of AC has become the only chapter of the party in the south east geo-political zone to secure a chairmanship seat, indeed, an elective position. But this is only if Governor Orji, in tune with the rule of law mantra of Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s government, throws party sentiments over board and immediately swear in Okoli of Action Congress in obedience to the tribunal judgment.

All eyes are now on Orji’s government!

Xmas Greetings from KlinReports Family

Merry Xmas & a Prosperous 2009 to world-wide audience and supporters OF klinReports. May the purpose of this season bring to you peace, love, favor, provision, direction, divine protection and long life. May the New Year, in particular, be for you a year of possibilities and fulfillment of special dreams.

A fatal love affair!

Presently, Miss Ifeoma Ezeorachi, a mistress to a murdered rich business man in Enugu-Nigeria, Prince Jacob Nwobodo, is standing trial for the killing of his erstwhile heart-rob. Nwobodo and 28 year old Ifeoma were lovers, and had, indeed, lived together for a period of six years before the latter (Nwobodo) got assassinated on August 12 this year.
54 year-old Nwobodo had, on the fateful day, dropped off his son, Jerry and another relation, at his Plot 9 Nkpokiti Road, Independent Layout, Enugu residence when he received a call from an unidentified caller. With a promise to rejoin the young men shortly, the estate giant immediately sped off to keep an appointment with his strange caller/s. Jerry had, incidentally, returned from his United States base to sort out some family matters with Dad.
But rather than return alive to rejoin Jerry and his elder brother, George, who had, equally, visited him from his Onitsha, Anambra state base, Nwobodo’s decomposing body was, four days after, precisely, on Saturday August 16, discovered in a bush in Agbani, Nkanu West council area of the state. Nwobodo’s assailants had, after killing him, smeared some substance, suspected to be acid, on his face, private parts and other vital organs.
Amidst police investigations, Nwobodo’s corpse was, on Saturday October 25, buried in his Ndiuno Amugo, Akpugo, Nkanu West council area home. But on Tuesday November 11, the state police command commenced the trial of Ifeoma, an indigene of Ejinadu village, Awka-Etiti, Idemili South Local Government Area of Anambra state, as one of Nwobodo’s alleged killers. In a two-count charge, numbered 746 C/2008, pending before Enugu North Magistrate Court 2, Ifeoma and others at large allegedly conspired amongst themselves to unlawfully kidnap and murder Nwobodo. The court is presided over by J.S Ede.
The charge reads: “That you, Ifeoma Ezeorachi ‘f’ and others at large on 12th of August between Nkpokiti Road and Achara Layout Road, Enugu in Enugu Magisterial District, did conspire amongst yourselves to commit felony to wit: kidnapping and murder and thereby committed an offence punishable under section 494 of the criminal code, Cap. 30, Vol. 11, Laws of Enugu state of Nigeria 2004”. This offence is, also, punishable under Section 274 (1) of the Criminal Code, Cap. 30, Vol. 11, laws of the state 2004.
Ede’s court, lacking jurisdiction in prosecuting the matter, directed transfer of the case file to the state’s Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), Eze O. Eze, for legal advice. Adjourning the matter sine die (indefinitely), the court remanded the accused (Ifeoma) at Enugu prisons pending commencement of trial at the high court. The court bound witnesses over at the sum of N10, 000. 00. Barrister D.C Nwobodo led three others to defend the 28 year-old mistress of the slain Nwobodo in court.
Arraignment of Ifeoma notwithstanding, the deceased family has an axe to grind with the police investigating team over its alleged shoddy handling of investigation into this murder too many. The team is headed by Fabian Okoye, a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) and Officer in Charge of Homicide Section (D4), State Criminal Investigation Department (CID).
Chief George Nwobodo, head of the deceased family, expresses his family’s disappointment concerning the arraignment of only Ifeoma in the murder of their son. George contends that police should have clinically investigated some tenants of the deceased estate who, in his life time, had disputes with him. Some of these tenants, according to George, were even with in court with his sibling before he was killed.
In particular, George said he had earlier, in his memo to the police, recommended investigation of the care-taker to his deceased brother’s buildings, Miss Ebere Onu, as well as one Nwankwo (alias Ojoko), and a retired soldier who, once, lived in the estate. But rather than thoroughly investigate these persons and others, George says police team hurriedly arraigned only Ifeoma.
The deceased family, also, protests police inability to have procured the identities of the callers of slain Nwobodo’s telephone handset before he was killed from the MTN Network. The police team, according to George, had demanded to be given N20, 000.00 to procure the call history which the family duly gave to them. Unfortunately, over a month after, Okoye’s team is yet to procure the call log from MTN before the seeming hasty arraignment of Ifeoma. The suspicion of the family is that the investigating cops would have diverted the money to their pockets.
“Police took N20, 000.00 from us to get the identities of all those who spoke with J.C before he was murdered. We gave the money to the 2/C to Commissioner of Police in the presence of Okoye. But till now, police has not said anything about our son’s phone and the money”, George said.
George regrets that the police shoddy investigation of the murder is despite his family’s co-operation to the investigating team.
“Sometimes, they asked us to give them this money or that money for investigation which we had always given to them. But now, we are not satisfied with their quality of investigation in this matter”, the grief-laden George laments.
Still, another gray area in the police investigation of Nwobodo’s assassination bothers on procedure. It would be recalled that counsel to the deceased family, Barrister Ray Nnaji, had petitioned the Police Inspector-General, Mike Okiro, over the murder. Nnaji, in the petition, dated August 18, 2008, asked Okiro to immediately intervene in the matter by ordering thorough investigation on the matter.
And the IG, subsequently, directed Enugu state police commissioner to investigate Nwobodo’s cold-blooded murder and forward his findings to his office. The IG’s directive is contained in a memo, dated August 25, 2008, signed by DSP James M. Mshelia, Principal Staff Officer II to Inspector-General of Police.
Nnaji, now, contends that the police were, in an ideal situation, supposed to communicate the outcome of their findings to the IG who, in the first instance, gave them the directive. But rather than that, the state command, according to Nnaji, went ahead to hurriedly arraign only one suspect. Nnaji is, therefore, of the opinion that the action of the police runs contrary to the tenets of due process in the organization.
While the family of the slain Nwobodo contemplates the next action to take in chasing justice over this gruesome murder of one of their own, the case file is currently before the state DPP for legal opinion. Whatever the DPP’s opinion turns out to be, the assassination of JEECEE is one of those puzzles the Nigeria police must resolve with dispatch.

Could this be ritual murder?

The discovery of decomposing dead bodies of twin sisters inside an Enugu Business Centre continues to generate shocks, as well as controversies.
What a cruel fate for twin sisters, Jeraldine and Jenevive Ugwuozor of Olo community in Ezeagu council area of Enugu state! The 25 year old identical twins were, on Monday November 3 this year, found stone dead inside a business centre, located at the C To C Plaza, Nkpokiti Junction in Enugu metropolis.
It was learnt that the twins, in a bid to complete a job which was to be unfailingly delivered to the owner on the fateful Monday, chose to work in the business centre throughout the weekend, starting from Saturday November 1. And because of the usual power outage, they employed the use of a generating set to get the job done.
But rather than meeting their target of delivering the job on schedule, the already decomposing bodies of the twin sisters were found littered in different locations inside the shop. The police had, on invitation by curious neighbors who perceived an offensive odour in the area, forced the doors to the shop open to discover the shocking sight.
Currently, the tragic death of the twin sisters is mired in controversy. The police and the deceased family are locked in a battle of wits with each other over the cause of their death.
While police, in its report, submitted that the twins died of Asphyxia (suffocation), the family averred that they could have been murdered. The police report, authored by Fabian Okoye, a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) and Officer in Charge of Homicide Section (D4), State Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Enugu, is, however, sequel to an earlier autopsy report, signed by Maxwell Ude, Enugu state Police Doctor.
“It is our belief even though for now a hunch, until the police unravel it that these girls were murdered”, the bereaved Ugwuozor asserts in a petition signed on their behalf by their counsel, Nnadiume Awforkansi.
The petition, dated November 7, 2008 and addressed to the Assistant Commissioner of Police In charge of the State CID, says the family is dissatisfied with the quality of investigations into the death of their twin children. The family accuses the police of ‘rushed and jumpy conclusions’ in the matter.
The family, in the petition, discards the autopsy report (carbon monoxide suffocation), insisting that the conclusion is ‘hasty, ungrounded and un-police like’. Countering the police suffocation theory, the grief-stricken family alleges that there was ‘a pool of blood, discharged and still floating on the scene’ as at the time of discovery of the girls’ bodies. Succinctly, Ugwuozor family contends that there would have been no blood trace on the scene had the twin sisters, actually, died of carbon monoxide.
The petition, also, remonstrates that there were evidences of a struggle at the death scene, leading to scattered computers, books and items of merchandise. Awforkansi, the family’s lawyer, in an interview, remarked that the body of one of the twins sprawled on the floor of the adjourning bathroom while the other lay near the exit door. Reasoning that the night watchmen around the area ought to have heard noise of the alleged struggle, the family regrets that the police merely extracted statements from them and set them free without getting them sufficiently quizzed over the incident.
Augustine Okoli, Enugu state Director of National Orientation Agency (NOA), is the owner of the ill-fated business centre. Okoli, in his statement to the police, says it was only one of the girls that were his staff, and that he employed her around October 20 this year. Okoli adds that he was still planning to issue her with an appointment letter before the incident. He, also, stated that he was in Abuja when the girls died.
But Awforkansi counters Okoli’s statement. Indeed, the lawyer quips that a younger niece of the twin sisters said she knew when one of them was employed, and when she was paid her salary. The niece claims that Okoli employed one of the twin sisters on July 4, and paid her first salary on August 4.
The counsel explains the presence of the twin sister not employed by Okoli at the business centre: “What happened was that Okoli employed one of the twin sisters in his business center. The twin sister who worked for Okoli did not get enough jobs. As a result, her twin sister, who was a computer operator in another business center at Abakpa-Nike, a suburb of Enugu, brought some urgent jobs to Okoli’s C To C Plaza, as to complete them on schedule with her”. Awforkansi adds that the twin sisters had, besides, worked together on a number of occasions inside Okoli’s business centre.
Another vexed issue in the petition involves the computer which the twin sisters were working with before the incident. Okoli reportedly told police that the deceased had borrowed a computer monitor (the screen) from someone to do the job, but the family seeks to know the identity of the lender of this monitor.
Thus the petition poses: “The CPU (Central Processing Unit) were scattered. What business has the system unit with carbon monoxide? Above all, who is this client whom these deceased girls were working for? What is the nature of his job? Has he come to claim his job since these girls died? Still, is the hard disk of the computer retrieved? If yes, has the police diagnosed the content to know the type of job these deceased girls were working on and who owns the job?”
Complaining that the police was unable to effectively investigate two women who claimed that they saw the deceased the previous day hale and hearty, the petition alleges that the killers of the twin sisters, by their claims, sold a dummy of carbon monoxide, lamenting that police bought the dummy hook, line and sinker. The petition, therefore, calls for transfer of the matter from the ‘D4 SCID to any other department that will handle the matter with the dexterity it deserves’.
But these allegations by the deceased family notwithstanding, the police have concluded that the twin sisters died of carbon monoxide from the generating set they were using inside the business centre. The command dismisses the claim that the girls were murdered, explaining that while they (the twins) had locked the front door from the outside, the back door was bolted from inside the office. This, according to the command, meant that there was no way anybody would have broken into the office to kill or maim the girls. Police, also, explain that the girls died because they closed up all the windows and doors in the business centre, and still had the generating set functioning beside them, a situation which led to their suffocation by fumes from their generating set.
Another alleged shoddy investigation by police is in the area of Okoli’s attitude after the incident. Rather than contact the family of the deceased twins, Okoli’s alleged first reaction was to call a lady who introduced the twin girl to him on phone. “Why did he call the lady first instead of going to know what transpired?” the family queried. And rather than the police, the family wondered why Okoli, also, allegedly call up the state’s Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), Eze O. Eze, immediately he arrived at the scene (his office). A major grievance of the family against Okoli was that he had never met with them over the tragedy.
The autopsy report, of course, remains a gray area in the autopsy report. The family says they suspect foul-play, maintaining that they were not represented in the exercise. As a matter of fact, the magazine was told that it was Ude, the state police doctor, and Okoli’s personal doctor who conducted the autopsy. Awforkansi submits that even these two medical doctors were not qualified to carry out an autopsy, contending that it is only morbid anatomists who are qualified to touch dead bodies, not general practitioners like the duo. Although the lawyer, in an interview on Monday November 24, disclosed that the doctors performing the post mortem discovered that nipples of the deceased girls were chopped off, a copy of the autopsy sighted by KlinReports does not contain such report.
While the controversies rage, the bodies of the twin sisters seem to have been confiscated at Dona Mortuary in Oji River where they were deposited. The Ugwuozor family is, therefore, calling on the police to release the corpses for burial amidst investigations into the incident.