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From Judex Okoro, Calabar
Some communities in Biase local government area of Cross River State are at daggers drawn over moves to transfer a serving magistrate in the area.
While some stakeholders of the communities including Ugbem, Ekpri Iko and Iwuru Obio Ntan staged a peaceful protests in Calabar and called for the immediate redeployment of Magistrate Ikpi Abam presiding over the Biase Magistrate for alleged undue threats to peace and harmony, others have rejected calls to transfer a serving Magistrate in the area.
However, rejecting the call for transfer of Chief Magistrate Abam, I. I in a letter to the state Chief Judge, Obort ( Engr) Onda I. Onda (King) Romm the Enuike (Ehom Central) for Village Council of Chiefs, said the three villages, who carried out the protest, did not have the mandate to speak for Biase as there are over 100 gazetted villages in the area.
Onda described the protest in his letter to the State Chief Judge as “deceitful and misleading”, as the issue has to do with contempt and failure to attend court without explanation.
He disclosed that “most of those criminal cases against them (leaders of the protesters) were instituted long before the Chief Magistrate Abam I. I. was posted to the court and were to start denovo and they have never appeared before him.
“The demonstration of these criminal suspects from the three communities (Iwuru Obio Ntan, Ekpri – Iko and Ugbem) is a political gimmick, unjustifiable, fraudulent and mischievous.
“The aim is to rubbish and ridicule the Magistrate Court in Biase LGA so that their criminal activities be covered. So, any attempt to uphold their intention will amount to setting a very dangerous precedent to that level of the judiciary,” he said.
Similarly, HRH Atte Obhort Sunday Eyong, the Atte Obhort of Akpet Nation/Clan Head of Akpet Central as well as Chief Stanley Assem, Secretary General of Akpet Nation /Chief Of Ahoma rejected the protest.
In a separate letter to the state Chief Judge, they informed her “to use your good office to discountenance the protest based on its frivolities,” adding
that “they are aware that three chiefs from Ugbem were facing criminal charge before the Chief Magistrate and everybody is equal before the law.
“If bench warrants were issued by the presiding Magistrate against persons guilty of contempt, this is in line with the law. It does not give those that committed same, the impetus to protest – scheming to escape from the wrath of the law.
“Those that have pending bench warrant against them should be advised to honourably face the law rather than engaging in superficialities as nobody is above the law,” they said.
According to them, Biase needs peace and tranquility and the Courts remain one of the avenues to resolve some disputes and tame criminal elements in a society as ours.
