Evading two DSS Abductions Inspired by my First Counsel— Mr. Kelechi Nnadi in Quick Succession
Gradually the situation began to degenerate until one day a female University Security officer who was close to me came to my office and asked if I had any issue with the University administration, and I said no. she then informed me that they have been informed to keep watch on my movements for further instructions. Even my Director, Prof. Emeka Nwabueze had at one point advised me to be very careful about my movements.
I therefore needed not to be informed further of the danger around me. My next action was to immediately relocate to my home-State of Delta where I stayed at the relatively underdeveloped Bonsaak suburb of Asaba—the State Capital.
I could remember borrowing the sum of thirty thousand naira from my Director Prof Emeka Nwabueze for an important journey to Lagos the last time I stepped my foot in my office, which I am yet to pay back. It was indeed from Bonsaak suburb that I pursued the legal action with the unsuspecting guidance of my first Counsel Kelechi Nnadi, Esq.
However, my first Baptism of Fire came when I visited Abuja to consult with the former Executive Secretary of Nigerian Christian Pilgrims Welfare Board. He had directed me to wait for him at a Hotel in Asokoro District.
As soon as he arrived, I boarded his SUV. As we drove out of the hotel, he discreetly pointed at another parked black SUV not far from where he parked and informed me that the vehicle belonged to the DSS and that we were being monitored. By the time he dropped me off to my Hotel at Garki 1 Suburb, I knew I was in a serious danger.
About 4:30 am, I saw in a dream a man and a woman with pistol coming after me, and as they attempted to get hold of me, I woke up immediately. Trembling, I began to arrange my things in preparation for check-out. I attempted to get a little bed-rest before leaving, and then I fell asleep, only to be shown in what looked like a clear life encounter with the same two people approaching the Hotel.
I quickly took my things and stepped out of the room. I woke up the receptionist sleeping on the exit and told her to open the door for me. She attempted to protest like someone under instruction to prevent me from leaving the hotel, but the menacing tone of my voice forced her to get up immediately and took the room key from me the same time he opened the door.
As I stepped out of the Hotel which was on a major street and crossed over to the other side to pick a cab, I saw the same woman and man I saw in my dreams walking towards the Hotel. As I boarded the cab, I saw them entering the Hotel. I moved straight to my uncle’s residence—Mr. Patrick Enenmoh at Area One Garki, where I stayed for the rest of the day before racing back to Asaba.
After a while, Mr. Nnadi began to inform me that his life was in danger for being my counsel in the matter and surreptitiously began to advise me to discontinue the legal action.
Even at a point, the presiding Judge Hon. Justice Alfred Faji advised me to withdraw the case and seek alternative means of addressing my grievances. Of course, I soundly rejected their quisling advice, and as would be expected, the result was that I noticed Mr. Kelechi Nnadi subtly engaging in willful sabotage against the case, beginning by willfully absenting himself from court sittings. Consequently, I began to shop for alternative legal support from some concerned Christian leaders.
In the midst of these saboteur challenges from Mr. Kelechi Nnadi, a group of Concerned Christian leaders in Port Harcourt, Rivers State led by Bishop (Prof) Mercy Funmi Adesaya-Davis invited me to address them on the progress of the legal action. From my interactions with these trusted men of God, some lawyers volunteered to join the legal team; prominent among them was an Aba-based legal practitioner Barrister Okey Obikeze.
Few days after my Port Harcourt visit, I received a call from an uncommon personality who humbly introduced himself as Solomon Asemota from Benin City. He clearly informed me that he had been informed of my on-going legal action and that he has decided to take up the case at his own cost.
That was how I was subsequently availed with the services of a Senior Advocate of Nigeria—the Nigerian equivalent of the British Queen’s Counsel, Elder Solomon Asemota, SAN, who incidentally was a member of the National Christian Elders Council of Nigeria, and currently founder and President of Christian Social Movement of Nigeria (CSMN). Elder Solomon Asemota, SAN, was later joined by another very senior legal luminary, the now transitioned into eternal glory, Prof. Ben Nwabueze, SAN, as another volunteer.
But Mr. Kelechi Nnadi was not ready to accept the fact of the presence of the Senior Counsels; although he could do nothing to stop it given the hierarchical chain of professional discipline inherent in the legal profession.
Instead, he resolved to overtly sabotage me; first by refusing to hand over the case file to Elder Asemota, SAN, and second by out rightly colluding with the DSS to apprehend me.
My first suspicion was when I met one notorious cash n’ carry lawyer Barrister B. Okoji from my town in his office. As soon as I entered the office, they abruptly changed the topic of their discussion. Indeed, I learnt from a privileged source that Mr. Kelechi Nnadi was promised promotion to Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) if could stop the case by any means possible by the erstwhile Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice Alhaji Abubakar Malami. Thus, I saw my once trusted counsel, friend and Isu brother turning into a brutish foe against me.
The first attempt was at his office when on Saturday September 24, 2019 he invited me to collect the case file for onward transmission to Elder Solomon Asemota, SAN, after long hesitation; while the second took place on Thursday September 29, 2016 at the Federal High Court, Asaba premises.
After a long-drawn argument on why I should invite a Senior Counsel to supersede him, he agreed to hand over the file to me and consequently invited me to his office to that effect. On the day of appointment which was on a Saturday, as luck would have it, my car developed an unusual problem, which led me to board a tricycle to his office situated on an isolated street off Okpanam Road, Asaba.
With the absence of my car—an American spec wine red-colored BMW E46 model, which was one of my major means of identification, I was momentarily saved from easy walkover arrest by the DSS, who were already stationed at Okpanam Road/Ogelue Chukwurah Street junction leading to Mr. Kelechi Nnadi’s office.
Indeed, as I later learnt, the plan was for me to be picked up at the junction before getting to Mr. Nnadi’s office. In that case Mr. Kelechi NNadi would not be held accountable for my whereabouts.
I was also famed for putting on red fez traditional Igbo title cap and wrist coral beads as insignia of my traditional title of Odogwu of Ibusa. But since I became aware of the danger confronting me, I stopped putting them on.
Thus, on that day, as I boarded the tricycle to Mr. Nnadi’s office, just about a pole distance to the junction which led directly to his office, the tricycle rider protested that he had left Asaba and was now in Okpanam, which was not our agreed destination. I tried to plead with him but he insisted he was not going further. I then paid him the agreed fare and stepped out of his machine.
I was thereafter made to complete the rest of the journey on foot. As I moved and negotiated the bend towards the junction to his office, I noticed a blue Vaux Wagen Passat car parked neatly by the walk-way. I immediately felt some cold shudders and consequently became curious.
My intuition told me to turn back, but my spirit told me to move ahead because that could easily make them curious of whom I am. As I strode past the vehicle, I discovered that two of the four occupants were Policemen in uniform with AK-47 rifles, while the driver and the passenger at the front seat were on mufti. I quickly entered the street pretending to be mindless of the occupants of the car and moved towards Mr. Kelechi Nnadi’s office, albeit with great apprehension and caution.
By act of divine intervention, on approaching the gate to his office, the security guard instead of opening the gate for me, told me to leave the street immediately, pointing to the Passat Car I just saw at the junction and said to me in Pidgin English, “Oga, you see dat car, na u dem dey wait for.”
I immediately responded with a wobbling thank you and moved along to the next street junction, negotiated left, and subsequently found my way to the main Okpanam-Asaba Road, from where I proceeded direct to my residence of refuge.
Surprisingly, few minutes after boarding a tricycle, Mr. Nnadi called and ask why it was taking me so long to come. I responded by asking him how he expected me to come to his office when he had a team of Policemen ready to abduct me.
Strikingly, his response was not that of denial but that of demanding to know where he could bring the file to me. I then responded by telling him that I would come to his office at a convenient time to collect the file.
Indeed, it was later that a friend of mine and fellow legal practitioner to Mr. Nnadi, Mr. Tony Sawyer, aka Odumodu Aka-Ikenga, informed me when I fled briefly to his house at Okpanam that Mr. Nnadi’s plan with the security agents was to abduct me and subsequently dispose of my person.
According to Barrister Tony Sawyer, Mr. Kelechi Nnadi did the same to his elder brother Mr. Awele Sawyer from Okpanam in a land matter, in which he invited him to his office as his client, only to call the Nigeria Police SCIB to come and whisk him away from his office.
It was after this incident which took place few days to the adjourned date of the court sitting being September 29, 2016 and which I reported to Elder Solomon Asemota, SAN, that the latter expressly instructed Mr. Kelechi Nnadi to bring the file to the court on the next adjournment date unfailingly. And it was on this very day which Mr. Nnadi clandestinely absented himself from the court proceedings without formal excuse and, without even informing Elder Solomon Asemota of his intended absence, that the big attempt was made to abduct me at the Federal High Court premises, Asaba.
Although it was not my wish to appear in court that day because of the obvious danger already confronting me, but Elder Solomon Asemota informed me that he would personally be present in court to retrieve the case file from Mr. Nnadi and assured me that nothing would happen to me on that day.
I was not convinced, having not fully recovered from the shock of the previous two days. But I had to be there in court in order not to send a bad signal of an uncommitted fighter to the Senior Counsel, who was attending the court session for the first time that day. So, what I did was to sneak into my home-town Ibusa which is some few kilometers away from Asaba and mobilized a bus-load of loyal youth to join me at the court premises in solidarity and subsequently act as guards.
On that day, I came to the court dressed undisguised without my usual traditional insignia of office as Odogwu of Ibusa and with a taxi cab. However, for reasons of caution I had to wait some distances away from the court premises for Elder Asemota who had to cover an approximate distance of 120 kilometers that morning from his base in Benin City to Asaba to arrive.
I had also informed the accompanying youth to position themselves some distance away from the court premises to avoid any form of undue attraction or suspicion until they receive the signal from me through a phone call that I had entered the court premises.
Fortunately, in disguise, the mini-bus conveying the youth had flat tyre, and for some time I was apprehensive whether they could be able to make it in time as scheduled. It was later I learnt that their presence within the vicinity of the court premises at the time of my arrival could have attracted undue attention the DSS hunters.
However, after waiting for some moments for the arrival of Elder Asemota, who was all the while informing me that he was on his way, and it was just few minutes to the 9am commencement time for the court session, I decided to take the risk of entering the court to enable me at least to inform the presiding Judge that my lead counsel was on his way to the court. I then instructed the youth to proceed to the court premises.
It is important to note that what transpired in the process of my getting into the court room, combined with my previous two day’s experience on my way to Mr. Nnadi’s office and thereafter, clearly point to evidence of protective Divine fingers on my head.
In fact, when I look back at the many precarious situations that confronted me within the precipitous borderlands of death, I develop cold shivers, wondering how on earth I was able to scale through all those shadows of death.
To state that I had died one hundred times and resurrected one hundred times might sound rhetorical, but in actual sense it paradoxically approximates what I passed through from 2016 before getting to the point I am today in the Philippines Capital City of Manila as a refugee.
Thus, on that day, after giving signal to the youth to proceed to the court premises, I proceeded to the court in the company of my cab driver disguised in a simple attire of a pair of faded blue jeans trousers and a simple short-sleeve shirt to match. As we drove into the court premises, we saw three hefty men standing at the dual entrance of the main court building.
At first, my cab driver who was fully briefed of my mission was so fear-stricken that he pleaded to stay in the car, but I insisted we should alight together and move into the court together.
This was because my leaving the car while the driver stays behind could definitely attract undue attention to the status of the man who was chauffeur-driven to the court, even though I sat at the front passenger’s seat. It was also possible that the driver could be reached quickly in my brief absence and promised mouth-watering sum if only he could reveal my true identity.
Or even the driver could initiate the process himself in order to make quick money over my head. I was not ready to take chances. Even though I knew that in the absence of first-hand knowledge the security agents would be expecting to see a man with an extraordinary executive personal carriage, of which I bore none both in bodily appearance and outward social carriage.
I was not dressed in any attractive attire that could likely attract undue attention. I was on simple pair of jeans trousers and a sort of commoner-type short-sleeve shirt to march; coincidentally appearing in the same form of attire with the cab driver.
Thus except for someone who had known me personally before then, it would have been difficult for any strange intruder to expect somebody of my appearance to have been the person they were looking for. With the driver stepping out of the car with me at the same time, the suspicion of a chauffeur-driven personality was therefore knocked out of the thoughts of the three men.
As we approached the entrance door of the court where they were positioned ostensibly waiting for one big man called Dr. Nwankwo Tony Nwaezeigwe, we noticed that they were not ordinary men, because not only was their stature relatively imposing with unusual muscular appearance and wide chested, they looked smartly well-fed in appearance with characteristically well-oiled fresh-looking skins that clearly revealed their exclusive high status of office, in contrast to the miserably sun-beaten dry-skinned ordinary Police officers on the streets of Asaba.
However, automatically generating some by-way discussions, we passed through them unsuspectingly and subsequently moved upstairs to the main court room, where the Court Clerk who was then at the court room seemingly looking dazed at me, asked, “did you meet some people downstairs,” and all most immediately I replied no.
He then informed me that the Judge was not in court and that my case had been adjourned to 19 October, 2016, and that I should endeavor to inform my lawyer of the new date. I thanked him and with the cab driver we stepped out of the court room, moved downstairs where the three men were still standing at their positions, and jumped inside the cab and drove off the court premises.
Just as we were leaving the gate of the court premises, the bus conveying the youth from my village approached and was about to enter the court premises when the cab driver signaled the driver to stop, since the youth on their own part were not expecting me to appear in a cab. They then followed us to a safe distance where I paid the bus driver his bills and gave lunch handouts to the boys and thereafter informed them that the court session did not hold as planned.
However, as I was concluding with the boys and their bus driver, Elder Solomon Asemota, called to inform me that he was already at the court premises. I tried to explain to him what I passed through and why I should not come, but he insisted I should come, promising me that nothing would happen to me in his presence.
I then returned to the court to meet him where, he personally wrote with red ink on the court record book of his presence in the court as the new counsel in-charge of my case.
Thereafter, he commanded Mr. Kelechi Nnadi to bring the case file right there in the court, which he accordingly did through one of his subordinates with swift professional agility, having claimed he was out of town.
Strikingly enough, by the time I arrived at the court the second time to meet Elder Asemota, the three men had disappeared. The Court Clerk later narrated to me how the three men came later came after I had collected the adjournment date and asked if he was sure I would still come to court to collect the adjournment date since they were informed that my lawyer would not be coming to court.
It was then he informed them that I had already come and gone. They stood still for some seconds speechless before leaving the courtroom without uttering any further words to the Court Clerk.
It was from that moment that I was advised by Elder Asemota to seek adequate means of protection. Following the obvious evidence of Mr. Nnadi’s sabotage, I was compelled to formally debrief him as my lawyer through a letter dated October 6, 2016 and copied to the presiding Judge and Elder Asemota. The letter reads:
“S. Kelechi Nnadi Esq., ACIS October 6, 2016
Solicitor & Notary Public
S. KELECHI NNADI & CO.
Intercessors Chambers
14 Ogelue Chukwurah Street
Off Okpanam Road,
Asaba
+234 8037238009
Dear Mr. Kelechi Nnadi,
RE-CASE SUIT NO. FHC/ASB/CS/11/2016— DR NWANKWO TONY NWAEZEIGWE VS. PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA AND FOUR OTHERS: Notice of De-Briefing of Kelechi Nnadi Esq.
This is to formally inform you of my decision to de-brief you as my counsel in the SUIT NO. FHC/ASB/CS/11/2016 HOLDEN at the Federal High Court, Asaba, Delta State. The decision is not unconnected with my clear loss of confidence in your delivery of services as a professional lawyer to me as your client.
It should be recalled that right from the moment I informed you of my decision to invite Pa Solomon Asemota, SAN into the suit, I experienced attempts by the security agencies to have me arrested and by so doing make the suit a nullity through my absence in Court. So far, your reactions as to your suspected involvement in the arrest plan have not been satisfactory.
The first action was the day you invited me to pick a copy of the Case File for onward transmission to the SAN during which I escaped by the act of Providence the ungodly abduction of security officials in a blue Passat VW car close to your office. You did not provide satisfactory response to the incident when I detailed you, my experience. Since similar incident occurred between you and one Mr. Awele Sawyer from Okpanam in a land matter, in which you invited him to your office as your client only for the SCIB to come and whisk him away from there, I have come to the conclusion that you lack the moral integrity and patriotic wisdom to solicit and advocate for me in this Suit.
My next experience speaks of volume of your betrayal of your cherished client when on the Court Day—September 29, 2016 you refused to either come in person as we agreed in order to collect your appearance fees or send any of your juniors to collect the date of next adjournment. I was left to be picked up by yet another set three Security men mounted at the entrance door of the Court building. How I escaped them might not be your concern here, but the fact that you did not provide satisfactory reason to support your absence or inability to send any of your juniors to pick the date for the next sitting remains a clear cause for concern on my own side.
Based on the foregoing which clearly impinges on the twin questions of confidence and trust, I have no other alternative than to inform you that your services are no longer required as my counsel in this or any other future case.
Signed
Nwankwo Tony Nwaezeigwe, PhD
Plaintiff
Cc: Registrar, Federal High Court, Asaba
Solomon Adun Asemota, SAN, Benin City
Precious Nwadimuya, Esq. Asaba.”
Following the obvious dangers facing me, I did not appear in court during the next sitting which was on 19 October, 20016, but was represented by Mr. Precious Nwadimuya, a volunteer lawyer from the Christian Association of Nigeria, who stood in for Elder Asemota. It was on that date that the presiding judge resolved that he was no longer ready to try the case and consequently transferred it to Abuja for the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court to re-assign to another Judge. His reason was that since all the defendants were resident in Abuja, it would be palpable to have the case tried at Abuja.
To me however, the transfer of the case to Abuja was a calculated ploy to easily track me down. For this reason, Elder Asemota advised that being a civil matter my presence in court would not be required, unless I was invited to give my evidence. Consequently, I went into full underground.
Following the failure of the DSS to track me down, in January 2017, my salary was stopped without due process on the orders of the Federal Government. There was and up till this moment of my writing no official communication by way of a letter ordering the stoppage of my salary by the University authority. I was later informed by my Director, Prof. Emeka Nwabueze that the only reason the officer in-charge of our emolument gave for the action was that I was required to come and clarify some facts with the Department.
To me this was a trap too cheap to pin down a Lion, since it was simply a layman’s strategy to track me down for arrest. Even Prof. Nwabueze was at a point cajoling me to just come and show my face and go into hiding again and nothing would happen to me. I simply told him that he would not have the will to protect me when the officials of Directorate of State Security come after me. It was at that point that two prominent Igbo leaders and politicians—a former Governor of Anambra State and Political Adviser to President Olusegun Obasanjo, Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife, and a former Minister under President Shehu Shagari and General Sani Abacha, Prof. I. C. Madubuike, intervened and confronted the Vice Chancellor of the University—Prof. Benjamin Ozumba over my matter.
The Vice Chancellor was quick to inform them that he was not aware of the withholding of my salary and that he would do something about it if it was within his powers. Of course, that ended the story, since it was not within his powers to undo what was done by the security agents from Abuja, given the fact that our salaries are only prepared at the university and sent to Abuja for payment. From that moment I began to face serious financial difficulties, depending mainly on benevolent handouts from some concerned friends and members of my family for sustenance until I fled the country on May, 2018. But as I later found out, such lack of money indeed provided me with auspicious cover since it restricted both my movements and ostentatious lifestyle.
Nwankwo T. Nwaezeigwe, PhD, DD, Odogwu of Ibusa is the President, International Coalition against Christian Genocide in Nigeria (ICAC-GEN) and can be reached via
Email: Nwaezeigwe.genocideafrica@gmail.com Visit us at https://icac-gen.org for more news and your financial support
