A judge at the Court of Appeal, Owerri, Justice Rita Pemu, on Sunday survived a kidnap attempt in Anambra State.
The Secretary of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Owerri Branch, Chinedu Agu, disclosed this in a statement on Monday in the Imo State capital.
He said the incident occurred along Azia-Orsumoghu-Ihiala road in Anambra State, adding that the judge’s driving was still missing.
.Agu said: “On Sunday, February 20, 2022, the Presiding Justice of the Court of Appeal while traveling to Owerri from Benin City was kidnapped along Azia-Orsumoghu-Ihiala road at about 11:00 a.m.
When the Chairman of the Bar, J.I. Ogamba and the Secretary, Chinedu Agu, paid the Lordship a visit at 5:00 p.m. today, the Secretariat gathered that the kidnappers double-crossed the Lordship’s vehicle, disembarking her and ordering her to prostrate on the road while pointing guns menacingly on her head.
Justice Pemu, who was rather in her Hiace Bus instead of her SUV and was dressed in a simple, spartan and free-flowing gown was mistaken by the kidnappers as one of ‘oga’s stewards’, as they kept demanding to know in which car their ‘oga’ (boss) was.
“While she was marched into a thick forest, one of the kidnappers, the Secretariat gathered, was boasting that he would have wasted their oga if he were there.
“As the Lordship was marched into the bush-like a death-destined sheep to the slaughter, gunshots and concomitant cries of anguish pervaded the bush, which heightened her apprehension.
“As of the time of filing this report, her official cars, driver and personal property inside the car are yet to be found.”
A retired Judge in the Delta State Judiciary Service, Stella Ogene has been alleged of illegally acquiring an offshore company.
The company was allegedly exposed in the Pandora Papers according to a report on Tuesday by Premium Times in collaboration with UK-based Finance Uncovered.
Ogene retired from the judicial service of Delta State where she headed the state’s Customary Court of Appeal for a record 21 years, the report said.
According to the report, Ogene “operated a secret offshore company for several years in blatant breach of Nigeria’s code of conduct laws.
“And even in what pushes the limit of impunity, publicly accessible Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) records list her as a director of a private company for 10 years running.
In 2009, Mrs Ogene decided to venture into the London property market. However, for a public officer, she had a challenge: scaling the UK due diligence checks about her source of funds.
“She also needed to blindside the Nigerian Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) from determining an undeclared asset or an asset not attributable to fair income in accordance with Nigeria’s law.
“To scale these hurdles, she procured what experts call an envelope structure. To acquire the property without being detected, Mrs Ogene hid behind a company tucked away offshore.”
In order to unravel the situation, the investigators contacted Ogene who initially “made a flat denial of her link with the shell company, Assete Media Limited” before being sent a further written note describing information “including a Cook Worldwide register of clients listing her as a sole director and secretary, letters she signed indicating she is the beneficial owner and an exact address of the London property she secretly bought.
Realising the futility of further denial, Mrs Ogene then said, “I am not a sole director or any director for that matter and I am just a nominal shareholder of Assete Media. In relation to the records of the letter you referred to written by me, it is outdated and obsolete and there are documents to that effect.”
Justice Cyprian Ajah of the Enugu State High Court on Thursday charged the police and other law enforcement agencies to stop parading criminal suspects in their custody.
Ajah made the call in a paper he presented at the ongoing training on the Implementation of Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA), 2015 and Human Rights for Officials of Nigerian Correctional Service, Nigeria Police Force, and Judiciary in Enugu.
He described the parade of suspects when they are still perceived as innocent as media trial.
The judge said: “Mental torture is deeper and lasts longer than physical torture.
The constitution presumes every accused person as innocent until proven guilty from the point of the law.
“So, when you parade a person before the public, through the television, radio and newspapers, the public see him as a criminal, perceive him as a criminal and most times treat him or her as one.
Incidentally, when the person undergoes trial and is discharged and acquitted, there will be no opportunity of parading him again to say that he is innocent.
“Those who watched him before that had labelled him a criminal would not have the opportunity or time to watch him paraded as innocent.
“It is unfair hearing. It is bad and the constitution and the laws of the land are wholly against all forms of media and sensational trial of any suspects outside the court.
“The innocent person in question continues to suffer torment and mental torture throughout his lifetime and become a subject of humiliation and scorn even among his own people.”
A judge at the Delta State High Court, Justice Anthony Ezonfade Okorodas, has revealed that the three children he thought he had with his ex-wife, Barr. Celia Juliet Ototo, do not belong to him after all.
The judge, who disclosed this in a statement dated January 28, 2021, said the true situation about the children’s paternity was confirmed by a Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) test conducted on the kids recently.
Okorodas pointed out that he discovered the truth about the children’s paternity 11 years after the separation from his estranged wife.
The judge said: “I have taken the decision to address the press in respect of certain traumatic developments that have arisen between me and my ex-wife, Barr. Celia Juliet Ototo of the Ototo Family of Ovom in Yenagoa Local Government Area of Bayelsa State. It is now nearly 11 years since our separation and divorce.
“This press statement is important in order to prevent damaging speculations, half-truths and outright lies from persons who may want to cash in on the tragedy that has befallen my home.
“Sometime during the Coronavirus lockdown early last year, I received information from an anonymous source that indicated that the last of the three children from my previous marriage was in fact not my biological child. Due to the COVID-19 restrictions at the time, I had to wait until August 2020 to carry out a DNA test. The DNA test result which came out in September 2020 confirmed that I was not the biological father of the child.
“Consequently, I convened a joint meeting between my extended family on the one side and Celia’s paternal and maternal families (i.e., the Ototo Family of Ovom Town and the Agbagidi Family of Yenagoa Town) on the other side, where I confronted her with the paternity fraud allegation. Although she initially strongly insisted that I was the biological father, she has since confessed to having the child with another man during the course of our marriage.
“This repulsive act of my ex-wife prompted me to conduct DNA tests in respect of the two other children. A few days ago, the results came out. Sadly, none of them is my biological child.
“This abomination has caused excruciating mental trauma to me, my present wife, Barr. (Mrs) Ebi Okorodas and all of the innocent children involved. This is particularly so for Ebi, who has had to agree to having DNA tests on the four children of our own marriage. Thankfully, the test results confirm each of them to be my biological child.
“It is important to state that Celia walked away from the marriage when her youngest child (who is now 17 years of age) was just six years old. Since then, all of her children have lived with my wife, Ebi and I, and we have been wholly responsible for their wellbeing and education. Friends who are close to my family would readily attest to the fact that unless specifically informed, no one could tell that the children were not the biological children of my present wife.
“Ebi and I would continue to support the children in any way that we can. Indeed, even after the release of the first DNA test result which proved that I was not the biological father of the last child, we have continued to pay for his education in a private boarding school. The two other children are university undergraduates. The first, a female, will be a graduate later this year, and the second will soon enter his 4th year of study. We pray for them to overcome the trauma and become responsible citizens of our country.
“For Celia and her boyfriend or boyfriends, we leave them to their conscience. Thank you very much.”
A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked the Biden administration from enforcing its 100-day deportation freeze in one of the first legal battles over the new president’s agenda.
Judge Drew Tipton issued a temporary restraining order against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that will apply nationwide while the lawsuit from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) plays out.
“Texas has thus far satisfactorily demonstrated it is entitled to immediate and temporary relief from the January 20 Memorandum’s 100-day pause on removals,” wrote Tipton, who was appointed by former President Trump to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.
Biden’s freeze, Tipton wrote “is clearly not in accordance with, or is in excess of, the authority accorded to the Attorney General.” Tipton disputed the federal government’s claim that U.S. Code allows the attorney general to pause deportations when a final order of removal has already been issued. This argument, he writes, is based on an interpretation of the statue that “contravenes the unambiguous text.”
“Where Congress uses specific language within its immigration statutes to direct the Attorney General toward a specific result, courts are not free to assume based on a matrix of principles, statutes, and regulations that the Attorney General’s authority is simply ‘a matter of discretion,'” Tipton added.
Paxton announced the lawsuit last Friday, two days after Biden took office.
“If left unchallenged, DHS could re-assert this suspension power for a longer period or even indefinitely, effectively granting a blanket amnesty to illegal aliens that Congress has refused to pass time and time again,” Paxton’s complaint reads.
The day before Paxton’s lawsuit, the Department of Homeland Security issued a memo that called for the 100-day freeze on most deportations as part of a broader “reset and review” of immigration enforcement throughout the department.
The Hill has reached out to Paxton’s office and the Justice Department for comment.
A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked the Biden administration from enforcing its 100-day deportation freeze in one of the first legal battles over the new president’s agenda.
Judge Drew Tipton issued a temporary restraining order against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that will apply nationwide while the lawsuit from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) plays out.
“Texas has thus far satisfactorily demonstrated it is entitled to immediate and temporary relief from the January 20 Memorandum’s 100-day pause on removals,” wrote Tipton, who was appointed by former President Trump to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.
Biden’s freeze, Tipton wrote “is clearly not in accordance with, or is in excess of, the authority accorded to the Attorney General.” Tipton disputed the federal government’s claim that U.S. Code allows the attorney general to pause deportations when a final order of removal has already been issued. This argument, he writes, is based on an interpretation of the statue that “contravenes the unambiguous text.”
“Where Congress uses specific language within its immigration statutes to direct the Attorney General toward a specific result, courts are not free to assume based on a matrix of principles, statutes, and regulations that the Attorney General’s authority is simply ‘a matter of discretion,'” Tipton added.
Paxton announced the lawsuit last Friday, two days after Biden took office.
“If left unchallenged, DHS could re-assert this suspension power for a longer period or even indefinitely, effectively granting a blanket amnesty to illegal aliens that Congress has refused to pass time and time again,” Paxton’s complaint reads.
The day before Paxton’s lawsuit, the Department of Homeland Security issued a memo that called for the 100-day freeze on most deportations as part of a broader “reset and review” of immigration enforcement throughout the department.
A court in Georgia has thrown out a lawsuit by US President Donald Trump’s campaign team, asking that the county followed state laws on processing absentee ballots, according to Associated Press.
Chatham County Superior Court Judge, James Bass, did not however give an explanation for his decision on Thursday, following a one-hour hearing.
The county includes the heavily Democratic city of Savannah.
The suit had raised concerns about 53 absentee ballots, which poll observers claimed were not part of an original batch of ballots.
But County elections officials testified that all 53 ballots had been received on time.
By flipping the northern battlegrounds of Michigan and Wisconsin, and also winning formerly pro-Trump Arizona, Biden reached 264 electoral votes against 214 so far for Trump.
To reach 270, Biden hopes to add the six electoral votes from Nevada, where he had a small and shrinking lead, or the larger prizes of hard-fought Georgia or Pennsylvania.
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