Ike Nnachi, Abakaliki
A Lawyer, Sunday Ununu accused of murdering an orphaned 36-year-old Man, Nnamdi Nwoke, on Friday disrupted his arraignment proceedings at the Magistrate Court 1 in the State Judiciary Headquarters, Abakaliki, capital of Ebonyi State.
Ununu is the Principal of Bigbird chambers, a popular legal firm in Abakaliki.
He was arrested two weeks ago and had been in police custody at the police headquarters Abakaliki after the bullets he fired from a pistol in his possession hit the late Nwite.
The incident happened when a group, Izzi Unuphu Land Power of Attorney was celebrating their election for the new executives of the group.
The Friday incident at the court was the third attempt to arraign Ununu this week in the Magistrate court 1 presided by Ojemba Isu Oko with all failing.
In the Friday afternoon 6th September, 2024 incident, Ununu was docked and he walked out of the dock protesting that the charges against him were not properly entered.
The drama which lasted for about two hours, disrupted court proceedings in other magistrate courts within the Magistrate court 1 where he was arraigned.
After the drama, Ununu was taken out of the court in a branded black police operational vehicle to the police headquarters by armed policemen who brought him to the court while the Magistrate court one couldn’t sit on the matter.
Ununu also grated interview to some journalists after walking out of the dock but the policemen came to the two journalists, Wilson Okereke of The Sun; and Enyinnaya Omoke of the New Nigeria; seized their phones and deleted the interview as recorded in their phones.
Meanwhile, a rights group, Civil Liberty Organization (CLO) has petitioned the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, seeking transfer of the case file to force headquarters, Abuja.
The CLO in a statement signed by Kindness Jonah of the Enugu unit of the organisation, alleged that some disgruntled members of the extended family of the deceased were demanding clandestine settlement.
They also alleged that some officcers of the state police command are in the know of the notorious plot to cover up the matter and are now actively trying to circumvent justice by liaising for a quantifiable settlement without due process.
“Barrister Sunday Ununu should be made to face the full weight of the law for callously cutting short the enterprising life of Mr. Nnamdi Ugo Nwite, and for even trying ‘‘settling’’ with distant relatives of the victim without any modicum of regard for the nuclear family with an aged mother, certainly due to their excruciating poverty level,” the petition read in part.
The petition was copied to Governor Francis Nwifuru, the state Commissioner of Police, Family of Nnamdi Nwite, National Human Rights Commission, among others.
Spokesperson of the Police in Ebonyi, Joshua Ukandu, dismissed the insinuations that the command was planning to cover the matter.
“How can we cover the matter, is he not in our custody. On this issue of his arraignment, I don’t have the details. For now, I don’t know anything about that but I know he has been in our custody,” he said.
