REVEALED: Ogungbeje, lawyer defending Evans, tried to block forfeiture of Ikoyi cash to FG

Olukoya Ogungbeje, the lawyer defending Chukwudumeme Onwuamadike, the billionaire kidnapper known as Evans, is not new to controversies.

Ogungbeje who heads Lawflex Chambers and is the chairman of Voice Vanguard, filed a fundamental rights suit on behalf of Evans at the federal high court in Lagos on Wednesday.

He accused the inspector-general of police and three others of detaining Evans illegally.

Joined as respondents were the Nigeria police force, commissioner of police Lagos state, and the special anti-robbery squad, Lagos police command.

Ogungbeje is seeking a court order directing the respondents to immediately charge his client to court if there is any case against him.

He is in the alternative, seeking an order, compelling the respondents to immediately release Evans unconditionally in the absence of any offence warranting a charged.

In the suit marked, FHC/L/CS/1012/2017, Evans is contending that his continued detention by the respondents since June 10, without a charge, or release on bail is an infringement on his fundamental rights.

He argued that the respondents ought to have charged him to court in accordance with the provisions of sections 35 and 36 of the constitution.

In a 27-paragraph affidavit in support of the motion deposed to by Evan’s father, Stephen Onwuamadike, it was averred that the applicant has been subjected to media trial without any court’s order by the respondents.

Onwuamadike said the media trial and news orchestrated by the respondents have continued to generate reactions in both print and electronic media without his son being afforded fair hearing before a court of law.

The deponent also averred that since his son’s arrest, all his family members have been denied access to him while media practitioners have been granted unfettered access to him.

The new suit has not been assigned to any judge and no date has been fixed for the hearing.

In April, Evans lawyer, who identified himself on Facebook as Voice Olukoya Ogungbeje, filed a suit  asking  the federal high court to stay proceedings on the forfeiture of $43,449,947 (about N13billion), N23,218,000 and £27,800 (about N10.6 million) found in a flat in Ikoyi, Lagos.

He also sought an order directing the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to furnish the court with a report of its preliminary or final investigation on the source of the money, its owner, and how the currencies got into the building.

Ogungbeje, in a motion on notice asked the court not to order a permanent forfeiture of the money since there are claims and counter-claims as to its ownership by the Rivers state government and the National Intelligence Agency (NIA)and since the federal government had set up the Osinbajo panel to find the truth about the ownership of the money.

The case did not get anywhere as the money was later permanently forfeited to the Federal Government.

Ogungbeje also once filed a suit in Lagos in  2014 asking for the reinstatement of  Murtala Nyako as governor of Adamawa state. This was after Nyako was impeached by the state assembly in July of the same year and the speaker of the state assembly had taken over.

Again, the case did not go far.

Ogungbeje claimed the assembly’s alleged failure to serve Nyako personally with the impeachment notice violated his fundamental right to fair hearing as enshrined under section 36 of the 1999 constitution.