71 YEAR OLD WIDOW CRIES OUT FOR HELP, EXPOSES HOW A FORMER ABIA GOV. IS ATTEMPTING TO TAKE HER PROPERTY 

Other charges include unlawful destruction and damage of one padlock, behaving in a manner likely to cause breach of peace and forceful entry into a land known as Kate White House land which “which is in actual and peaceable possession of one Chukwuemeka Adiele (m) and obstructing and resisting one John Onuoha (m) of the High Court of Justice, Umuahia from executing court order punishable under sections 516, 451, 145 of the criminal lcode3 cap 80, and the criminal lcode3 cap 81, volume 3, Laws of Abia State of Nigeria (2005).

According to the suit number U/04C/2019, the accused, along with others now at large had on the 13th of November, 2018 at Umuagu Ibeku Umuahia in the Umuahia North Magisterial District, conspired to commit the felony by destroying the padlock placed upon the property by court bailiff, illegally entering into the property and obstructing the court bailiff from doing his duties.

The defendant pleaded not guilty to all the four count charges.

Following argument by the lead council, Adizua C Okoroafor that the defendant prayed for her bail based on the fact that the defendant is a senior citizen by age, has health challenges, is a senior member of the bar and a lecturer at ABSU, assuming her to be innocent until proved guilty.

Opposing the bail, the police prosecuting counsel, Igwe Isaac of the State Criminal Investigation Department said that his position was based on the rate at which people disobey court orders and called for accelerated hearing.

Ruling, the Presiding Magistrate, U U Egwu granted her bail on self recognition, with two suretees in the sum of N1 million each, and the matter adjourned till 6th of February, 2019.

However, the defendant, Mrs. Katherine Chinyere Onwughara, who was not in a position to talk based on her health status, had through a family source said that dragging her to court was a ploy by the police to intimidate her.

The source who chose to speak for the defendant on condition of anonymity said the battle that led to the court arraignment of the defendant has been going for years before the demise of the Defendant’s husband, Doris Onwughara, and that the matter was over Cika Hilton, “a hotel close to the said property”, (Kate Whitehouse), “where a 70+ old widow was thrown out”

“This case has been in court when a former governor of the Abia state claimed he got the property through an auction when the National Deposit Insurance Company, NDIC were recovering properties and from there claimed ownership of Cika Hilton.

One day, the widow woke up and saw a court notice pasted on the said property claiming that the NDIC was trying to recover Cika Hilton and a second property referred to in that paper. It is a second property in Ugwunchara, while we live at Umuagu Ibeku, very close to the said Cika Hilton and which does not have the same Certificate of Occupancy, CofO with the Cika Hilton”.

The family source brandished a letter from the Ministry of Lands which the Defendant got while the matter was in court stating that the two properties are not same, does not have the same CofO and the said Kate Whitehouse is not situate in Ugwunchara.

Before this time, the source said, “We have been having threats, people would come from a particular company telling us that if the woman doesn’t leave that property while alive, she would leave it dead. This is after we lost Cika Hilton to an acclaimed sells that was never advertised. We never bordered with the property.

According to her, when Chief Doris Onwughara died, “they dropped the charges and all of a sudden, they started on the Kate Whitehouse. We have different fences and different landlords”.

According to her, on the early morning of 14th of November, some men came with guns and jumped the fence and the widow was not at home. People she said called her on the phone asking her to stay away that people looking like kidnappers were in her house.

“They said bailiff came. They vandalized the property, took things, broke glasses, drank things and stole money. They are the members of the c Ivil Defence.

“The poor widow was freightened and she ran to every police she can reach if there is a court order against the (Kate Whitehouse) property and they said no.”

According to her, “we have gotten a court injunction form the then Justice Sunday Imo who told them that no police and the company should go to that property and that Kate Whitehouse is not Cika Hilton.

“This was a popular case and the police are aware. She later called her lawyer and by the time people got to the house, nobody saw her again and the house was open”, the family source said.

“We were informed that a paper was pasted on the property purportedly coming from failed Tribunal of 1999 for Cika Hilton on Kate Whitehouse. The woman did not see such a paper when she came back in the evening.

“Now on the 31st, policemen came to her and invited her for questioning with the reason that there is a petition against her. She was at the police station where she was shown a petition from a company urging her to open the property.

The Defendant said she was not there, but came to see her property thrown outside and packed them.
The police, the source said had kept her there while people were calling her that some people are removing the roof of her house, Kate Whitehouse. But the police refuse her going out from morning till in the evening.

“When I called the police, I was told that their hands were tied”, the source said “until they finished in removing the roof of the property and broke the gate and used cement to seal it, and broke the wall demarcating the house with Cika Hilton and yet she was with the police, even when they have charged the woman to court this Thursday the 3rd of January.

According to a court source, the matter started in 1999 and there is a subsisting matter in the court of Appeal that the NDIC is yet to vacate, adding that the Appeal Court had recognized the ruling of Abia High Court under now retired Hon. Justice Sunday Imo, the Chief of Abia state.

The source wondered why NDIC should give out what they don’t have yet.

When contacted, the Police Public Relations Officer, Geoffrey Ogbonna denied any knowledge of the incident.

(The Renaissance News)