The Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike has recalled a chieftaincy dispute which occurred in his community that led to the arrest and detention of his father, uncle, brothers, and himself on trumped-up murder charge. He stated this while eulogising the contributions of Emmanuel C. Ukala (SAN), on the occasion of the latter’s 65th birthday party held on Tuesday night in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital.
This was contained in a statement issued by the governor’s media aide, Kelvin Ebiri and made available to newsmen. Gov. Wike noted that it took the intervention of Ukala as their lead counsel for him and his family to be discharged and acquitted during the chieftaincy ordeal. “There was a time that the entire family was charged for murder. Every male was taken away. We only had women left in the house with children between the ages of one and five. “As at that time, I was reading law at the then Rivers State University of Science and Technology, now Rivers State University,” he stated. The governor disclosed that the legal luminary, in whose law firm he worked after leaving the Nigerian Law School, took his family’s ordeal very personal and gave his best to ensure that they got justice.
Speaking on his initial chequered political history, Gov. Wike said when he declared his intention to contest for the office of the chairman of Obio-Akpor Local Government Area in 1998, some callous politicians in his constituency ganged up and conspired with the police to frame him up for armed robbery. According to him, Ukala not only intervened and secured his release, but also defended him from the tribunal up to the Supreme Court when some vested interest in the council desperately attempted to deprive him to be sworn into office as Obio-Akpor council chairman. The governor added that “throughout my chairmanship matter in 1998, when we had elections down to April 4, 2000, when the Supreme Court finally decided my matter, he (Ukala) never took a dime.”
Gov. Wike stated that when the Rivers State Election Petition Tribunal annulled the 2015 governorship poll which he won convincingly, he contacted some lawyers to defend him in the matter and they demanded as much as N300 to N600 million as their legal fee. But when he approached Ukala, whom he described as a mentor, he agreed to offer his legal services for free. He described Ukala as a refined and disciplined lawyer, while applauding the legal icon for being a worthy mentor to him and his wife when they started their legal practice in Port Harcourt.