Posted by By RAZAQ BAMIDELE on
Former Anambra State Governor, Dr Chinwoke Mbadinuju has cried out loud to the police to leave him alone over the murder of Igwe couple, reminding them that he had been discharged and acquitted over the matter by a court of competent jurisdiction after a legal exercise lasting almost six years.
Former Anambra State Governor, Dr Chinwoke Mbadinuju has cried out loud to the police to leave him alone over the murder of Igwe couple, reminding them that he had been discharged and acquitted over the matter by a court of competent jurisdiction after a legal exercise lasting almost six years.
Mbadinuju, in an open letter to the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr Mike Okiro said harassing him over the issue was against the rule of law and fairness. He further complained that the whole issue appeared as if the police were sentimentally hell bent to deal with him at all costs.
'Rather than appeal against the judgement if they are dissatisfied, the police have decided to subject me to double jeopardy contrary to common sense, equity, due process and the rule of law.
'For them (police), now that Mbadinuju has been discharged and acquitted of all complicity and liability in the murder charge of Igwe, there must be something with which to make sure that he still goes down. And for them, they are bent on destroying Mbadinuju at all costs, even if it is in flagrant disobedience to court orders and judgement," the former governor lamented.
While intimating the IGP with the details of the matter, Mbadinuju reasoned that the latest invitation by the police was over the purported doctoring of police report of 16th May 2003, saying he was not aware that any police report was doctored, forged or altered, since he was not in the country when the report was reported to have been issued to clear him.
According to Mbadinuju, the latest accusation of doctoring police report 'is just like the accusation that I killed the Igwes even after the police found that I was in Houston, Texas the night the Igwes were murdered." He pointed out that even 'they (police) found out too that till the close of police investigation no one mentioned my name, so I did not conspire with anyone based on which finding the police cleared me to travel abroad because I had no case to answer."
The former governor, however, suspected that a Commissioner of Police, Amodu Ali who was in the special panel set up by the former IGP, Sunday Ehindero 'during my detention in 2005 which came up with recommendation that I be prosecuted for the Igwes' murder" was behind his present travail. Mbadinuju said Ali refused to see reason even when he was in position to have known that 'there was no evidence linking me to the murder as was corroborated by the recent High Court judgement, discharging and acquitting me of any complicity and liability in the said murder."
Mbadinuju, therefore, told the IGP in his letter that 'at every stage in the investigation of the Igwes murder, I have never been indicted. The police themselves and in their own volition discharged me after their intensive interrogation and investigation in their report of 16th May 2003, referenced CB: 2003/IGPSEC/ABJ/Col. 12/37."
He recalled that the former IGP, Sunday Ehindero 're-opened the investigation in 2005 and ordered my arrest on 16th December 2005 and after detaining me for 17 days, he charged me to a Jabi Magistrate Court in Abuja following the intervention of the presidency."
Having been discharged and acquitted on the Igwes murder case, Mbadinuju viewed his invitation over the same issue as contempt of court.
While querying whether President Musa Yar'Adua's call for reopening of the Igwes case was to suggest that Ehindero failed in the matter, the former governor advised that the team led by CP Amodu Ali be disbanded. He stressed, 'It is my humble submission that as long as the present investigating team led by CP Amodu Ali is charged with the killer of the Igwes, there can not be progress on the investigation."
He noted further: 'Sir, is it not possible for you to advise your men to leave me alone in this Igwes' matter? Anytime they are asked to do anything about the Igwes, they start with me, beam their searchlight on me and having found nothing on me since 2002 till today, why can't they look elsewhere?
'The President was clear in his letter to you that you should follow the leads provided in the petition of the concerned lawyers dated 22nd October, 2007 which the Presidency copied the lawyers. Why did Amodu Ali team abandon the presidential directive and concentrated their effort and attention on me?
'Please recall sir, that it was the same Amodu Ali, then an Assistant Commissioner of Police that served Sunday Ehindero to frame me up with murder of the Igwes even after police had cleared me. This same Amodu Ali is at it again.
'He realized that since the High Court has cleared me of Igwes' murder, he has to concoct another charge of 'forging" a police report. And for him, whatever can be said or done to indict, or convict or imprison or even kill me has remained his objective and obsession as prejudice carried over from Ehindero administration."