By CHARLES IWUOHA

Ebonyi State-based lawyer, Barr. Roy Nwaeze Umahi, has accused Elder Fred Udeogu, a leader of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state of misleading a bailiff of Federal High Court, Victor Jonathan of lying against serving his client court processes.

Nwaeze, a counsel to the factional Chairman of the PDP, Mr. Onyekachi Nwaebonyi, made this known to newsmen while reacting to an allegation that he attacked the said bailiffs while trying to serve his client (Nwaebonyi) a court processes at the Osborne La Palm Hotel, Abakaliki.

Recall that the Fred Udeogu-led PDP leadership in Ebonyi state had accused the lawyer, Nwaeze, of arresting and attacking the innocent bailiff of the court, Victor Jonathan, while trying to paste the court processes at the Osborne La Palm Hotel located along old Enugu Road, even when he (Jonathan) had showed them his Identity Card.

According to Udeogu, “rather than wait for the motion to be heard and a determination made by the court, the same Nwaeze changed course and resorted to attacking the innocent bailiffs of the court.

“The motion filed by Roy Nwaeze, Governor Edwin Umahi’s brother was subsisting and pending in court, he muscled his way through the Chief Registrar of the Federal High Court, Mr. Emmanuel Gakko, and made false accusations against the bailiffs of the court to the effect that the court processes served on the 1st -3rd defendants by the bailiffs of the court, were no longer served.

“It is unfortunate that the Chief Registrar of the Federal High Court, whom we understand had previous grouse against the Bailiff who served the court processes, took advantage of the situation to immediately set up a committee to try the said bailiff in accordance with the dictates of Roy Nwaeze the governor’s brother.

“It is unfortunate that the Chief Registrar of the Federal High Court, who himself is a lawyer, could not wait for the determination of the motion filed by the same Roy Nwaeze, challenging the service of the process of the court, on the 1st -3rd defendants, before rushing, due to his animosity against the said bailiff, and pressure by Roy Nwaeze, to set up a panel to try him.

“The action of the Chief Registrar of the Federal High Court was done in bad faith and undermines the integrity and jurisdiction of the Federal High Court, before whom the same issue has been brought for adjudication,” he noted.

But in a swift reaction, Barr. Nwaeze accused Fred Udeogu and “his cohorts” of rather compelling and misleading the innocent Bailiff to lie against serving his client the court processes at the Osborne La Palm hotel.

According to him, “A petition to an employer to investigate the conduct of his employee cannot be said to constitute an attack, except one is talking about an attack on the integrity of the employee, which isn’t a bad thing to do.

“The PDP guys had thought that they would be given the opportunity to work further on the seared conscience of the bailiff so that he would continue to lie that he served the court processes on our clients.

“Sadly for them, the bailiff admitted that he never served the processes. The PDP guys who made him to lie ought to be filled with immense shame because they're wicked and unrepentant perverters of justice.

“I could not have made false accusations against the bailiffs of the court when the same bailiffs, who are adults, and not kids, admitted in the Abakaliki Federal High Court and in the Abuja Federal High Court too that the court processes were never served on the 1st-3rd defendants.

“I’m seriously appalled that these PDP guys are insisting that the Bailiffs served the processes which the bailiffs have denied serving. This is terrible; they want their lie to be sustained. They should otherwise bury their heads in shame that they misled an innocent bailiff into deposing to a false Affidavit of service, a perjurious act.

“My role there has been to ensure that justice is not perverted. I'm hugely happy that the truths have been revealed. I invite press men to take physical interest in the court proceedings by witnessing same in order to see how shamelessly criminal some bandits of the truth could be.

“The Federal High Court is a place where justice ought not to be supplanted, and the Chief Registrar is one of the officers of the Court, who should not watch and do nothing when justice is being perverted. As the boss of the bailiff, he has a duty to investigate an allegation of misconduct against his employee or staff.

“He did the right thing by setting up a 3-member committee to investigate the allegation of false claim of service of court processes on some Defendants. He was never there in the Committee where the bailiff admitted that he never served the processes.

“The Chief Registrar is doing his own work – to investigate his staff for the purpose of disciplining him if found guilty. The 3three-member committee is a usual facts findings; it’s not the court that should set up the Committee or discipline the staff.

“What the Chief Registrar has done doesn’t stop the court from doing its own judicial work to determine whether the processes were served or not. The bailiff is free to go to the court and claim that he effected the service of the court processes. The conscience is his.”

Barr. Nwaeze who is the elder brother to governor Umahi, further revealed that the case will come up for hearing in the Federal High Court 5, Abuja on March 15, 2021.

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