A Magistrate Court sitting in Akure, Ondo State has struck out a suit filed by Eileen Odumosu against her ex-husband, Bankole Oni Ogunowo, seeking to repatriate him from the United Kingdom to Nigeria.
The President of the court, O. A. Adegoroye, struck out the matter over lack of enough evidence against Ogunowo and others.
Ogunowo’s lawyer, Barrister Kehinde Aladedutire, said Odumosu had been harassing, blackmailing and intimidating his client, both in the United Kingdom and in Nigeria.
Aladedutire further alleged that Odumosu had also been using policemen in Nigeria to harass Ogunowo’s former lover, Mercy Adetokunbo, who had a daughter for him.
According to Aladedutire, the genesis of the matter between his client and Odumosu started after his client refused to submit to her demand to pay her whooping sum of money for inviting him to the UK.
Aladedutire said in order to achieve the plan of ensuring Ogunowo was repatriated, Odumosu allegedly lied that his client carried out female genital mutilation on the daughter Adetokunbo had for him in Nigeria.
The lawyer said Odumosu lied about this, knowing that UK is against such practice.
The allegation was later found to be false by a UK court.
Aladedutire further said: “Eileen was infuriated by the UK court’s decision, which favoured our client.
“She also mobilized against Mrs. Mercy Adetokunbo, an ex-partner of Ogunowo, who had earlier debunked the allegation of Eileen in respect of the allegation of the female genital mutilation.”
The lawyer noted that after almost six months, Odumosu initiated another move to arrest Adetokunbo in spite of a Fundamental Right Action already instituted against the police for the violation of her right.
The lawyer disclosed that the police secretly obtained a remand warrant against Adetokunbo and detained her for about 14 days.
He explained that by the time press got to know about this illegal act and published it, the court ordered that Adetokunbo should be taken back to Akure for arraignment instead of keeping her in police custody.
The lawyer said: “On the way to Akure, she was kept incommunicado as the Investigating Police Officer collected her phone.
“It was by sheer grace that an officer in Akure Criminal Intelligence Department, who knew about our earlier involvement in the case, contacted us to let us know that the instruction from Lagos was to arraign Mercy that afternoon.
“On her arrival at the Chief Magistrate Court, Akure on July 20, 2017, I represented her.
“She was given bail and the case was adjourned since the complainant, Eileen, was absent.”
He explained that on the next adjourned date, which was August 21, 2017, Adetokunbo was present in court, but Odumosu was again absent.
None of her witnesses was also present.
The Prosecutor sought to bring in a new charge to include Ogunowo and Abayomi Ojo, the principal of Ogunowo’s secondary school, but this was opposed by Aladedutire.
Aladedutire said: “The court agreed that their names should be struck out of the charge.
“The Prosecutor proceeded with the process of rearraigning the defendant.
“Since the complainant was again absent, an application was made by us, the defence counsel, for the matter to be struck out and this was done.
“On September 26, 2017, we were in the same Chief Magistrate Court for another matter when the court’s clerk mentioned a case and we heard the names of our three clients mentioned from the cause list.
“This surprised us and we waited to know what was going on.
“We later realised that Eileen had again surreptitiously initiated a process of extraditing our client, Ogunowo, from UK.
“The Magistrate, however, refused the application and ordered that the respondents be put on notice.
“The counsel, who swore to the affidavit in support of the application actually perjured by stating that the reason the initial charge was struck out was as a result of the absence of our clients, especially Ogunowo.”
