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From Jeff Amechi Agbodo, Onitsha
The High Court in Neni, Anambra State presided over by Justice Onyinye Anumonye has dismissed a suit for judicial review brought by Mr. Godson Onyedibe, an official of the Department of State Service (DSS), and his parents, against his wife, Mrs. Ogechukwu Nkiru Onyedibe, and her Father, Chief Osita Okafor, over alleged attempted murder.
The DSS officer, Godson Onyedibe, his father, Israel Onyedibe, and mother, Ngozi Onyedibe, had applied to the High Court for orders of prohibition and order of certiorari to quash charge No. MCN/36C/2022 brought by the Commissioner of Police, Anambra State, against them for alleged attempted murder of his wife, Mrs. Ogechukwu Nkiru Onyedibe, among other felonious charges.
When the case come up before Chief Magistrate Court at Neni for bidding over where Godson Onyedibe and his parents were docked, they had through their lawyers, Chidi Nworka, Esq., raised objections and prayed the court to adjourned the case to enable him make a formal preliminary objection on ground of jurisdiction against the charges which was granted.
But, instead, Mr. Chidi Nworka Esq., on May 2, 2022 rushed to the High Court and applied to the superior court to quash the proceedings at the Lower Chief Magistrate Court for lack of territorial jurisdiction to entertain the charges, claiming that the alleged beating of the wife and attempted murder all happened at Owerri in Imo State, not in Anambra State.
Vehemently opposing the application for judicial review, Chris Ajugwe Esq., lawyer for Mrs. Ogechukwu Onyedibe and her Father, Chief Osita Okafor, insisted that the Chief Magistrate Court had territorial jurisdiction to hear the charges.
Ajugwe argued that part of the offences were committed in Owerri, where the couple resided and other parts in Adazi-Ani, Anambra State, saying, “it is a grievous criminal offence to evict a wife from her matrimonial home in Owerri and bundled her to her father’s home in Adazi-Ani as if she were a bad commodity or goods being returned to the supplier”.
The counsel, Ajugwe, further submitted that it was against Section 11(3( of Violence Against Persons (Prohibition and Protection) Law of Anambra State 2017, and that it was callous and unprecedented.
But ruling on the eviction and return of Mrs. Ogechukwu Onyedibe with a covering note accompanying it from Owerri to Adazi-Ani, given by Godson Onyedibe to his parents to deliver to his father in-law Chief Osita Okafor, the Justice Onyinye Anumonye, on July 20, 2023, held in part:
“There is no doubt that the delivery of the said letter, supporting the charge of eviction, occurred at Adazi-Ani, within the jurisdiction of the fourth Respondent; the alleged delivery of the second respondent against her will to the home villa of the first respondent, and the state in which she was delivered could have elicited violent confrontation from the first respondent and are, thus, conducts which constitute elements of the count likely to occasion the breach of the peace, pursuant to Section 247(d) Criminal Code Cap. 36. Vol II Revised Laws of Anambra State of Nigeria, 1991.
“It is clear from the foregoing that some of the elements charged occurred within the jurisdiction of the fourth respondent, though the initial incident may have occurred at Owerri, outside the jurisdiction of the fourth respondent; I am, therefore, based on the extant position of the law, of the considered view and I hold that any of the jurisdictions –Owerri and Anaocha, in which elements occurred have territorial jurisdiction to hear and determine the charge in Exhibit A.
“In any case, Section 8(2)(b) of the Criminal Code Cap. 36. Vol. II Revised Laws of Anambra State of Nigeria, 1991 provides that if the act or omission occurs elsewhere in the state, and the person who does that acts or makes that omission afterward comes into the state, he is by such coming into the state guilty of an offence of same kind, and is liable to same punishment, as if that act or omission had occurred in the state and he had been in the state when it occurred; thus, the coming into Adazi-Ani on 5/12/2021 by the first and second Applicants and subsequently by the third applicant who hails from Alor, Anambra State, automatically confers jurisdiction on fourth respondent”.
The court, therefore, dismissed the suit with N600,000 cost against the applicants in favour of Mrs Ogechukwu Nkiru Onyedibe and her father, Chief Osita Okafor. Mr. Godson and his parents will have to go back to face their charges of attempted murder of his wife, Mrs. Ogechukwu Onyedibe, in the Magistrates’ Court.
Meanwhile, Mr. Godson Onyedibe had approached an Owerri High Court in suit, asking the court to nullify his marriage with the wife and custody of the four children of the marriage.
