In a related development, Justice Ngwuta said Onu invited him and he honoured the invitation during which the Minister of Science and Technology sought his help to influence the decision of the Court of Appeal on the Ebonyi State governorship election case last year.
He stated, “The incident I will narrate below may or may not bear on this case. When the governorship election appeal from my state, Ebonyi, came to the Court of Appeal, one Mr. Igwenyi, a senior staff member of the Federal Judicial Service Commission came to my chambers and told me that the former Governor of Abia State, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, had pleaded with him to convince me to see him, Onu.
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“I asked him to call Dr. Onu; he did and I wanted to know why he wanted to see me. He said it was confidential. I asked when he wanted to see me and he said he would like me to come in the evening.
“I told Igwenyi that he would have to take me to Dr. Onu in his car and bring me back. I had wanted him to listen to what Dr. Onu had to say but when we arrived, Dr Onu put him in a different room.
“He asked me whether I know the Hon. President of the Court of Appeal and I told him that His Lordship was my Presiding Justice in the Court of Appeal, Benin Division. He asked of my relationship with the PJA and I said it was cordial. He nodded his head several times in apparent satisfaction.
“He told me the candidate of the Labour Party was ready to switch over to APC if he could help him win the appeal in the Court of Appeal and that in appreciation of the undertaking to come over to his party, he had obtained the services of three Justices of the Court of Appeal to ensure victory for the Labour Party.
“He said he needed one to convince the PJA to include his three Justices of the Court of Appeal in the five-man panel to hear the appeal. I told him I would not help him and that I could not, in good conscience, convey such request even to a Customary Court Judge.
“He was disappointed and asked me whether I knew the husband of the PJA. I told him I did not know the man. I bid him good night and left.
“Igwenyi joined me in the passage and when he drove me back to my home, I told him what Dr. Onu wanted. Igwenyi apologised to me and assured me that he would not have bothered me if he had known what Dr. Onu wanted me to do.”
The Justice of the apex court also alleged that the operatives of the DSS planted some amounts of money in his house during the raid on his home to incriminate him.
He said apart from the $25,000, £10 and a brown envelope containing the sum of N710,000 which was a monthly allowance paid to him for September 2016 and another N300,000 and some loose change contained in the bag he usually took to the office, he had no explanation for the large sum of money allegedly recovered from his house.
But he said he signed a document said to be containing the list of items recovered from his house under a life-threatening situation.
He said, “One of them came to where I was lying down and ordered me to sit up. One of the gunmen, who stood a few feet from me, came and stood next to me with his gun drawn.
“I was ordered to sign a paper which they said contained a list of what they were taking away.
“Confronted with the life-threatening situation, I made an instant mental decision that it was better for me to comply with their orders and stay alive to tell my story rather than get shot and killed on the pretext that I attacked them or that I tried to escape.
“I signed the paper and wrote my name as ordered. No one told me what offence I was alleged to have committed. No one told me of any petition or allegation against me.
“I do not know how they came about the huge sums of money I saw for the first time in my parlour on the early hours of Saturday, October 8, 2016.
“The various sums of money alleged to have been recovered from me were said to be in the social media in the early hours of Saturday, October 8, 2016, when the invaders were yet to complete their search.”
He added, “My Noble Lord, I am a victim of my own resolve never to violate my sacred oath of office as a judicial officer. Politicians and their collaborators have been hunting me on that account.
“It started in Ebonyi State where I was falsely accused before a panel, set up by the NJC in August 2000. It was replicated in 2009 when I was pulled from my Division, Calabar, to preside over a motion filed by Senator Andy Uba, seeking to be a Governor without going through the process of election. In each case, I was exonerated.”
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