BREAKING! Ogwashi-Uku Palace Saga: Court Sends Izediunor To Prison

An Ogwashi-Uku Magistrate Court, in Charge No: A/81C/2022, on Tuesday remanded into prison custody a key suspect, Mr Ojo Eugene Izediunor in the February 7 attack against court bailiffs, police and members of the Ogwashi-Uku Umu Obi Obahai Royal Family.

According to police sources, the suspect has been on the run since February 7, 2022 when the court bailiffs armed with a warrant of possession from the High Court in Asaba came to take possession of the Ogwashi-Uku Palace.

This was pursuant to a victory at all court levels from the High Court, Court of Appeal in Benin and also the Supreme Court.

The suspect according to the same sources was tracked after he initially fled Ogwashi-Uku.

He is said to have been finally tracked to a hotel in Ogwashi-Uku where he had violently assaulted a woman after refusing to pay her for his overnight intimacy with her.

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Unknown to him, the police had laid an ambush for him and had been following him.

He was arrested and brought to the Ogwashi-Uku station on the charges of assaulting the woman.

It was at the station that crack detectives from the Delta State CID who had been assisted by members of the IG Monitoring team in Abuja were waiting for him and he was arrested and transferred to the State CID in Asaba for further investigations.

Recall that on February 7th 2022, as the court officials came to execute the warrant of possession, the suspect, Mr Ojo Izediunor along with thugs and hoodlums he had recruited, allegedly barricaded the gates of the palace and dared the police.

They were armed with all manner of dangerous weapons including guns, cutlasses, daggers and improvised explosives (Molotov cocktails).

They launched an attack against the court officials and police which led to the initial retreat by the police to the divisional police headquarters in Ogwashi-Uku.

It was based on this attack that the Delta CP Ari Ali sent reinforcements to recover the palace and in the process the suspect fled and escaped.

Some other suspects were arrested at the scene and are still in custody.

The legal battle, which lasted for about 23 years, was to determine the occupant of the hereditary stool between the Umudeiyi lineage and the Umu Obi Obahai Royal lineage.

This court battle terminated on November 1, 2021, when the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal filed by Umudeiyi family and affirmed the judgment of the lower courts that the stool belonged to the Umu Obi Obahai royal lineage.

Obi Ifechukwude Aninshi Okonjo II, who is the brother to the Director General of World Trade Organisation, Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has warned that the palace would no longer tolerate acts of mischief and lawlessness in the community.

He has insisted that a community cannot thrive where there is persistent breakdown of law and order.

According to him, “Everybody in Ogwashi-Uku has a stake in this palace, and we will deal with everybody fairly, kindly and forthrightly. We will be transparent, we will be held accountable for our actions,” he said.

It appears that Ogwashi-Uku is gradually becoming calm and normalcy is returning to the community after the events of the past few weeks.

The police have indicated that they will not stop until the remaining suspects are apprehended so they can have their day in court.

According to a discrete police source, they are still on the hunt for four remaining suspects who orchestrated the attack against the court bailiffs, police and members of the Umu Obi Obahai Royal family.