By Tony Adibe
The Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO), Enugu State Chapter, has called on the Chief Justice of the Federation, Justice Ariwoola to review the case pending at the Supreme Court so that Mr. Ifeanyi Ekoh who has been condemned to die for a trumped charge.
The purported charge is that he masterminded the kidnap, killing and dismemberment of a minor in Ebonyi State, late Miss Ukamaka Immaculata Ogboji from Ikwo Ebonyi State, hence the rights body wants him to be left off the hangman’s rope.
NewsBits learnt that the innocent victim, Ifeanyi Ekoh, who hails from Ihe, Awgu Local Government Area of Enugu State, Southeast, Nigeria was condemned to death since 2012 by the Ebonyi State High Court and the Court of Appeal, Enugu over a crime, CLO claimed, he was innocent of. As CLO believed that Ekoh is innocent, it wanted the Ebonyi State Government and all the people connected with the case to pay N5 billion compensation for “castrating him and jailing him unlawfully and absolve him of the crime and set him free.”
In the long petition to the Chief Judge of Nigeria (CJN), Ariwoola, signed by a CLO a member in Enugu, Comrade Kindness Jonah, and made available to reporters , Ekoh was identified as a business man, who specialized in dealing on cars – a car dealer in Lagos – but only went to Ebonyi sometime in 2012 to see a friend, one Ifeanyi Igwe whom he went to Calabar with to buy bags of Crayfish to be sold in Lagos.
However, after the Calabar Crayfish transaction, CLO claimed that Ekoh left for his base in Lagos only to be called by one Mr. Igwe that he (Igwe) wanted to buy a car just to lead him to the police who arrested him for the allegation that he (Igwe) paid one Ebenezer Amaga to kidnap, kill and dismember Miss Ukamaka Immaculeta Ogboji whose body parts were given to two native doctors and one Obinna Nwuruku who hails from Ikwo.
However, CLO said it is concerned that the 1st accused, Ebenezer Amaga testified that he was directed to kill Miss Ogboji on the orders of one Chinedu Ogah who was working with Mrs Elechi, the wife of then Gov. Martin Elechi and subsequently gave the body parts to one Mr. Obinna Nwuruku and two native doctors but all these were ignored by the courts and left Chinedu Ogah, Obinna Nwuruku off the hook, including the two native doctors as well as his friend, Ifeanyi Igwe whom he went to Calabar with but singled out Ifeanyi Ekoh to die for the crime.
According to the CLO, the most annoying thing was that Ekoh explained that he never knew Ebenezer Amaga, Ifeanyi Oga and Obinna Nwuruku from Adam and wondered why he was condemned to death by the courts. The father to the slain, Miss Ogboji testified before a competent court that he had never seen or known Mr. Ekoh before in his life.
“The father to the killed and dismembered little girl confessed before the court, ‘I do not know Ifeanyi Ekoh and I have not met him before,” the CLO remarked. The CLO further noted that the courts relied on retracted statement by Ebenezer Amaga that it was no longer Obinna Nwuruku he gave the body parts to but one Oyi Ogobuchi who was never tried but Ekoh was held on the trumped-up allegation by Ebenezer Amaga who he had claimed, he only met in prison.
The human rights group, which insisted that Ekoh is not guilty, however, had this to ask: “How come then that the 3rd accused Mr. Ifeanyi Ekoh lured the 1st accused, Ebenezer Amaga into kidnapping when both never knew themselves earlier before they met in prison?” The CLO also emphasised that, “Ebonyi State High Court did not care to unravel the identity of Mr. Oyi Ogobuchi since they so relied on the statement of the 1st accused, Ebenezer Amaga to condemn Mr. Ifeanyi Ekoh to death?”
CLO accused the former Ebonyi State Governor, Chief Martin Elechi government and that of David Umahi of collecting N570,000 and N500,000 respectively to grant Ekoh pardon but never did neither did they and their Attorney Generals refund the parole money. The CLO, therefore appealed to Justice Ariwoola to ensure Ekoh should be released unconditionally because, “he is evidently innocent of the accused crime.”
The rights body maintained that the whole “mastermind of the kidnap and kill and dismember of the little Ukamaka Ogboji, Mr. Chinedu Ogah should be arrested immediately, tried and condemned to death alongside the 1st accused, Mr. Ebenezer Amaga.”
