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Nigeria: Forgery - Court Orders Mbadinuju's Arrest
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Vanguard (Lagos)
17 June 2008
Posted to the web 17 June 2008
Ise-Oluwa Ige
Abuja
AN Abuja High Court sitting at Gudu, yesterday, issued a bench warrant for the arrest of former Governor of Anambra State, Dr. Chinwoke Mbadinuju.
Justice A Talbir issued the order following a request by the police to enable him face a fresh two-count charge of conspiracy and forgery of police documents in respect to the murder of a one-time chairman of Onitsha Chapter of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Mr Barnabas Igwe and his pregnant wife, Amaka.
Mbadinuju's alleged accomplice and legal practitioner, one Obodo, was arrested and arraigned before the court yesterday.
Mbadinuju who is facing a two-count charge with him was absent in court yesterday and the police said his whereabouts was unknown.
But the former governor was sighted by Vanguard at the Federal Ministry of Justice where he had gone to complain about the conduct of the police in the entire case.
Mbadinuju protests
Vanguard gathered that at the time the bench warrant was being issued against him, he was in audience with the Attorney-General of the Federation, Chief Michael Aondoakaa (SAN).
Mbadinuju said a law court of competent jurisdiction had already discharged him of the offence of murder preferred against him by the police.
He said politicians who were behind his travails and the entire allegation of murder preferred against him were not happy with his discharge and had to push the police to prefer a fresh charge of conspiracy and forgery against him.
He said they were alleging that he forged the police report on the investigation of the murder of Igwes which formed the basis upon which he was charged to court for murder.
He said the police was unable to justify the allegation and that up till now, it has not been able to produce the original report it issued on the said investigation of the murder of the Igwes.
He said when the issue of forgery came up, the police came to his house to arrest him but that he refused to follow them because he had a court order stopping the police from further harassing him over the issue.
He said if this was a government which is truly based on the rule of law, he saw no reason why anybody must be harassing him in spite the order of the court discharging him.
According to the ex-governor, he knew that the police was not his problem but some powerful politicians in the state who wanted to run him aground politically.
He alleged that they had attempted to kill him in Onitsha prison where he was detained for about three months over the murder of the Igwes before he was released, alleging that the politicians who were after his life sponsored hoodlums into the Onitsha prisons to get him killed but that he escaped by whiskers through the grace of God.
He said the hoodlums set free over 3,000 inmates at the Onitsha prisons and even burnt some of the offices there where they felt he could be hiding at the time but that he survived the plan.
He said now that the court had discharged him of the murder charge, his enemies had now curiously found that he forged the police report which absolved him of the murder.
He added that he was at the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation to lodge complaint over the matter.
Denies forgery allegation
Mbadinuju had, about three weeks ago, denied the allegation that he forged the police report on the September 1, 2002 assassination of the ex-Chairman of the Onitsha Chapter of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Mr. Barnabas Igwe and his pregnant wife, Amaka.
Background of case
The background of the case is that Mbadinuju was said to have conspired with some criminals to arrange the death of the two lawyers.
Late Igwe and his pregnant wife, Amaka were assassinated five years and eight months ago while on a visit to a family friend in Awada Layout, Onitsha.
According to reports, the former NBA boss (Igwe) and his wife were shot several times by gunmen in their private car.
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After several gun-shots, the assassins allegedly moved closer to the dying couple and inflicted several machete cuts on them before using a vehicle to run over their bodies again and again to ensure that they did not survive the attack.
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