By Marry BASSEY, Senior Investigator Correspondent, Lagos/
LAGOS. FOR Engineer James Izuchukwu Ogbu, fate couldn’t have been crueler. As a young boy he had joined politics, hobnobbing with the high and mighty in Lagos. To add spleen to his political ambition, he got enrolled into Ahmadu Bello University to study chemical engineering. His fate however, suffered a devastating twist after he decamped from his former political party, the Peoples Democratic Party PDP to the All Progressives Congress APC, won the former strong hold of the PDP for his new party, APC. His traducers of the PDP and members of the Igbo community in Otumara community in the Lagos Mainland LGA conspired together, cooked up a rape against him and got him arrested. At Iponri Divisional Headquarters where he was detained, a teenage girl was brought before the DPO that he raped. All efforts to tell the Police who had (compromised) that he doesn’t know the girl let alone raped her fell on deaf ears. He was promptly charged with raped and remanded in Kirikiri Correctional Service and had been on the awaiting trial list since 2019.
His pathetic case attracted a lawyer, Barrister Michael who got the case file and went to the Lagos High Court Ikeja sitting before Justice R. A. Oshodi and the rape case was adjourned to December 12, 2023. Before the involvement of Barrister Michael, Engineer Ogbu had appeared before the same Judge for 16th times with each time, no complainant, Police prosecutor nor interested party. It simply a case of calling the mater at adjourned date, the accused is ducked and the mater adjourned again.
Speaking in tears to the Guardian in Kirikiri Correctional Service where he is still being held, the Ahmadu Bello University Graduate and native of Ugwulangu in Ohaozarra LGA of Ebonyi State said, “Why have Justice Oshodi decided to punish me with arbitrary adjournment when it’s obvious and crystal clear that no witnesses at all have ever appeared in my case since 4yrs now. Does he want me to die in Prison for no crime committed at all? Please sir, you have to help me curtain this long adjournment for the fairness of justice because Justice Delayed is Justice denied. I am Engineer Izuchukwu James Ogbu, a chemical engineer from Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, Nigeria. I am a native of Ugwulangwu Ohaozara LGA of Ebonyi state, Nigeria. I completed my NYSC in 2017 and joined politics in 2009 in ABU Zaria as a member of PDP in 2011 while being a student until 2018 when I officially decamped to the APC here in Lagos Mainland LGA.
Thereafter, I was made the APC youth Leader in Otumara community, Lagos Mainland LGA in 2018. I later founded a political group code named APC Grass Root Campaign Initiatives Lagos Mainland (Otumara Unit). The Chairman Lagos Mainland LGA, Hon Prince Fagba inaugurated my campaign group in 2018 and we worked until after 2019 General Elections where we won and delivered the PDP stronghold of Otumara Community Ilaje Ebute Metta West, Lagos Mainland LGA to APC our new party. I personally used my popularity to move over hundreds youths to APC at Otumara Community off Costain roundabout Lagos Mainland. This uncommon victory for APC in a formerly dominated Igbo PDP region in Lagos state called Ilaje Otumara in Ebute Metta Lagos Mainland LGA with over 80,000 residents shot me to limelight. It took us as a group to remove almost 20 years PDP grip of Otumara Community.
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“Aa a youth Leader, I played a leading role in the 2019 electioneering as a polling Unit Agent in ward B Epetedo booth 020 where I gathered 87 votes for APC as agaisnt PDP’s 4 votes( the INEC form EC8A) is there for verification of the 2019 Presidential Election Result with my names on the sheet as an APC polling Agent for confirmation. So after this elections opposition gang up from the previously beneficially of the defeated opposition PDP members including some defunct and now disbanded local Ilaje Otumara community Vigilantee group and began to victimize and oppress my members. The complaints from both local and some party members became so much that I have to petition the local vigilantee groups for unlawfully arresting some of my members and threatening to send them to prisons. I wrote petitioned against the Otumara vigilantee group and ask the Executive Chairman Lagos Mainland LGA Hon Omolola Essien to disband these partial and corrupt security outfits However both my political groups called Ebonyi Youth Lagos was summoned before the Local Government Chairman where the case was settled.
After this settlement the chief security officer of Ilaje Otumara Vigilantee group and the BOT chairman of the same group reported me to Igbo unions, Igbo speaking community and other bodies and threatened to deal with me after 7months in the same 2019. That was November 25, 2019. These Otumara Vigilantee Group conspired with Iponri Police Station and invited me to the station When we got there alongside these local vigilantee men when and arrange one so called Mr. Gabriel Obasi to report a case of sexual assault against the daughter. I don’t know this man and I don’t have any business whatsoever with him or her daughter. I believed Mr. Gabriel Obasi was bribed to present his daughter at the police station and claimed that she was defiled by me. After one week in detention and refused bail, the matter went to court. And all these bands of conspirators absconded the community.
After my arraignment, I was remanded on December 24, 2019 at Ikeja Magistrate court. From 2019 till date no complainant, local vigilantee group, no security, no IPO , no medical doctor who confirmed the defilement, nobody has ever appeared in the court against me. It is now Lagos State Vs James Izuchukwu Ogbu at the State High Court Ikeja. Please help me out of this continuous detention. It’s a pity that Justice R.A Oshodi denied me bail despite all these and refused to discharge the case after 3yrs and 7 months awaiting trial. Help me out to get back my freedom I have been to the court for 16th adjournments yet no complainants, no witnesses, no police IPO, no medical witnesses, no body at all that has shown up to be interested in the case, yet I am continually remanding in Kirikiri Medium Prison. Do they want me to die in jail, what kind of Injustice is this? Please help me because I know through your publication, well meaning Nigerians and the world at large would get to know.”
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