A Chief Judge & His Scandals

Despite his stratagem of setting up journalists to kill a story, Enugu State Chief Judge, Innocent Umezulike, remains notorious for his ‘randy’ life-styles and other scandals.
History was made in Enugu on May 18 when a presiding
Magistrate, Dennis Ekoh, ordered journalists who came to cover court
proceedings involving two of their colleagues, Michael Ubani of
Insider Weekly and David Desbods of High Society magazines out of his
court. Magistrate Ekoh, who seemed to be in a lone constitution review
voyage, averred that the journalists ought to have been certified for
the coverage by the court’s registrar. Ekoh, subsequently, in a rather
uncouth manner, shooed (away) the press men from his court.

It would be recalled that the two journalists, Mike Ubani and David
Desbods, have been standing trial for, among other things, alleged
conspiracy/extortion of the sum of N300, 000.00 from the state Chief
Judge, Innocent Umezulike. The charge claimed that the duo committed
the offence under Section 494 of the Criminal Laws of Enugu state
2004. The duo were first arraigned on April 17, and remanded in prison
custody after pleading not guilty to the allegations.

On the return date of May 18, Ekoh court gave the two pressmen
nigh-impossible bail conditions. The magistrate ruled that each of the
duo should produce a surety who must be a civil servant of means of
not less than Grade Level 15. Each of the sureties must, also, have a
registered title deed (landed property) within Enugu North Judicial
District, in addition to paying N5 million each.

But many see Ekoh’s ruling on the bail application as a rehearsal of
what his (Ekoh)’s ‘ultimate boss’ and the journalists’ primary
accuser, CJ Umezulike, had earlier instructed him to do on the case.
Some others, indeed, see the ruling as a subtle strategy of denying
the hapless media men bail over the case for, according to Nigerian
constitution and arguments of legal luminaries, the offence they
allegedly committed is a bailable one. ‘So, why make their bail
difficult in the first place’, queried an angry lawyer.

The rationale behind Ekoh’s dishing out the almost impossible bail
conditions to the accused journalists, in the opinion of not a few,
was meant to keep them in prison for as long as possible, so as to,
within the time range, intimidate and frighten them out of the subject
matter of the case which is, of course, the alleged ‘loose
life-styles’ of our Lord, the Chief Judge, Justice Innocent Umezulike.
The magazine, also, gathered that the journalists were motivated into
working on the Chief Judge’s alleged ‘randy life-styles’ because of
rumors making the rounds in Enugu and environs to the effect that he
keeps a chain of ‘girl friends’, both in the open and in secret. CJ
Umezulike is in his late 50s.

Many have viewed this life-style of Umezulike as a situation which,
ostensibly, falls below the standard expected of him as the Chief Law
Officer of Enugu state. And provided with an opportunity to state his
own side of the story, the Chief Judge, curiously, resorted to arm
twisting, invoking the full weight of the law (which he is the chief
custodian) against the investigating pen men, using a trio of his two
‘lawyer loyalists’, Chuma Oguejiofor and Tagbo Ike, as well as the
pliant Magistrate Dennis Ekoh.

Perhaps, a more nauseating aspect of the rumor on Justice Umezulike’s
licentious living is that he, equally, ‘sleeps’ around with under aged
girls, an offence which even the law he superintends frowns at
seriously.

Findings by this magazine indicated that the Chief Judge did, in fact,
stage-manage the arrest, remand and on-going prosecution of the two
journalists with the collaboration of the trio of Tagbo Ike, Chuma
Oguejiofor and Magistrate Dennis Ekoh.

According to an Enugu based lawyer who, understandably, would not want
his name in print: ‘A clear conscience fears no accusation. If Our
Lord, the Chief Judge knew that he is not sleeping about town with
bouts of girl friends as being rumored, why did he, under any guise,
offer to give the journalists ‘bribe’ to kill the story? Definitely,
the CJ has something to hide in all this which is yet to fully come to
public knowledge’.

But philandering is not all there is to the scandals dogging the path
of Umezulike as the Chief Judge of Enugu state. Umezulike, as reported
by THEWEEK Magazine, issue of June 1, 2009, nearly lost his plum job
following allegations of corruption, misconducts and high-handedness.

According to the magazine, the Chief Judge had, in an
extra-ordinary meeting of high court judges convened by Governor
Sullivan Chime last year, May 7, came under a deluge of these
allegations in his running of the state judiciary.

Also in attendance at this extra-ordinary meeting were selected
prominent citizens of the state, including eminent retired judges like
Nnaemeka Agu, Anthony Aniagolu, Eze Ozobu and Eugene Odo, speaker of
the state House of Assembly among others.

Although Justice Umezulike had safely navigated through the
allegations which had, interestingly, emanated from his fellow judges,
his troubles may not yet be over. Umezulike, as it were, debunked the
allegations, saying they were generalized and lacked details. But even
in the absence of his traducers substantiating their claims, Justice
Eze Ozobu, one time Chief Judge of the state, did not fail to
reportedly remark that ‘what is currently happening in the state
judiciary was not how it used to be during his own time as CJ’.
Insider Weekly learned that a caucus of powerful judges in the state
had hatched (and is still hatching) the plan to remove Umezulike from
office as Chief Judge. This is why some political analysts claim that
his disposition towards the journalists who came to inquire into his
life style as a public officer could not only have been borne out of
his genuine quest to dispense justice as it should be, but out of
jitter.

‘Our Lord, the Chief Judge could have, as well, been suffering from
persecution complex’, stated a source in the state judiciary.

It is generally believed that the Chief Judge lacks the confidence of
Chime’s government because of his perceived political leaning in the
state. Even when public servants are constitutionally debarred from
partisan politics, Umezulike, having be installed Chief Judge by the
former government of Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani far and above his superior,
Justice Agbo, enjoys a more pleasant relationship with Nnamani (now
senator) than incumbent Governor Chime. There is even the belief that
the Chief Judge remains one of the present pillars of Nnamani’s almost
moribund Ebeano Political Family, a splinter group from the state
Chapter of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) which has, now,
fused into the Progressives People’s Alliance.

Not to be left unmentioned in this report was an unsavory situation
observed last week by the magazine in the premises of the state
magistrate court. Not only that the court, under the Chief Judge’s
supervision, has been overgrown with weeds, the court premises seemed
to have become a dumping ground for rickety and disused vehicles of
all sorts.

Insider Weekly was told that the court staff have, in the discharge of
their official duties, often, run the risk of attacks by reptiles and
other dangerous animals who have found a safe haven underneath the
bushy premises of the state magistrate court where Magistrate Dennis
Ekoh, also, presides. The bushy nature of the court is despite the
state government’s huge budgetary allocations to the court which CJ
Umezulike superintends over.

However, efforts by Insider Weekly to get both the Chief Judge and the
court Registrar to react to all the issues in contention proved
fruitless.

For now, Nigerians are keenly watching the weird happenings in Enugu
state judiciary, and how the seeming shrewd set-up of the two
Journalists, Ubani and Desbods, would, eventually, be resolved.