Ozekhome Begs Abductors of Iheme-Nwosu for Her Release
Ugo Aliogo
Senior lawyer, Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN), yesterday passionately appealed to the abductors of Justice Chioma Iheme-Nwosu of the Court of Appeal in Benin City, to release her unhurt.
Justice Iheme-Nwosu was last Wednesday kidnapped along the Benin-Agbor Road by gunmen who killed her police orderly.
Ozekhome in statement in Abuja, urged the abductors of the jurist to see her as their mother they would never do anything to hurt no matter the circumstances.
“I beg you, captors or kidnappers of Justice IhemeNwosu in the name of God Almighty to please release her unhurt. See her as your mother that you would never do anything to hurt no matter the circumstances. I beg you also in the name of humanity and of womanhood,” he said
Ozekhome said the abduction of Justice Iheme-Nwosu, in broad daylight in Benin City only goes to show how unsafe the country has become.
“The abduction in broad daylight in Benin City of Justice Iheme-Nwosu is the saddest reminder of a beleaguered nation in the asphixiating throes of death by installment. That her police orderly that accompanied her was brutally killed and dismembered in the process, in a most horrific manner, sends the chill down our spines.”
The human rights lawyer equally lamented that while Nigerians are being mauled down across the nooks and crannies of country, the politicians who are supposed to drastic action to address the issue are busy politicking and unconcerned.
He noted that while elected officials who won in the 2019 general election are yet to settle down in office, “mindless politicians are already busy, strategising and plotting for 2023” thereby over heating the polity
“And the hapless masses are the victims of this societal degeneracy and misplaced values. The judiciary, the weakest and whipping child of the three arms of government, is mostly at the receiving end.”
Ozekhome also noted that while a minister or senator could afford to travel in convoys of fully armed security operatives, a judge is left with just one policeman who is usually armed with obsolete firearms.
“He is plucked down and dismembered like a chicken. Yet, the judge, especially justices of the Court of Appeal, must traverse the nation, handling never ending sensitive appeals from election petition tribunals, in jurisdictions other than their ordinarily accustomed places of abode or sitting. They are thus compelled by the cause and course of duty to travel by road, the very bad roads that are unmanned by security personnel. They thus fall easy prey to marauders. Justice Iheme-Nwosu has just suffered this fate.”