Police, Imo Govt’s Attempt To Arraign, Charge Ugochinyere Fails

A Federal Capital Territory High Court sitting in Abuja, has voided the plot by the Imo State Government and some security agencies including Police and DSS, to arrest opposition Coalition spokesperson, Ikenga Imo Ugochinyere, and prefer charges against him.

In an application for the enforcement of his fundamental rights, the Opposition spokesperson, who is also the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the Ideato North/South Federal Constituency of Imo State, prayed the Court to void the said false allegations as they were all politically motivated without any shred of evidence and protect his fundamental rights of freedom of expression.

Ugochinyere contended that the the allegations against him were false and cooked in the Imo State Government House as a plot to stop him from further exposing the manipulation of the Voter register by officials of the State Government for which the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has deleted millions of fake registrations and about 13 of its staff were undergoing disciplinary action.

The Court in a judgement delivered by Justice Binta Mohammed, therefore, restrained the Defendants including the Attorney General of Imo State, Nigeria Police Force, Inspector General of Police and Director General State Security Services from further intimidating, harassing, embarrassing, inviting, arresting or detaining prosecuting or charging to court the opposition spokesperson, Ugochinyere, based on any issues connected to the charges including the allegations of murder, robbery, arson, hacking into INEC database, terrorism, larceny, breach of national security, which he said were all targeted at shutting him up against further exposure of voter register compromise.

The Court also awarded the sum of N5 million only as general and exemplary damages in favour of the applicant against the defendants jointly and severally, declared that the compromise of the voter register is a threat to democracy and also voided the Police investigation report dated October 18, 2022 and the charge with No: OW/651/2022

It has been a running battle between the Imo State Government and Ugochinyere following the exposure by the opposition spokesperson of the Omuma Magic compromise of the INEC voters register.