EMEKA UGWUONYE'S CASE

A1(a)

A1 (b)

This finding by the Washington DC Bar dismissing the Embassy's complaint against me.

The Embassy took me to the Washington DC Bar. They complained that I refused to return the 1.55 million dollars to them. The DC Bar investigated the claim. I was asked to submit every document involve, including where the Embassy authorized my law practice to keep the money. I submitted everything to the Bar. The Bar showed everything I submitted to them to the Embassy, asking the Embassy to dispute it. The Embassy could not deny the documents I submitted to the Bar. 

After 8 months of thorough investigation, the Bar dismissed the Embassy Complaint and told there was no evidence that I violated the rule. As you can see in the letter, the Bar advised the Embassy that they could not meet the intermediate burden of "Clear and Convincing Evidence". In legal language, it means that they could not meet the higher burden of "Beyond Reasonable Doubt", which is what you need to prove that a person committed a crime. Now, ask yourself the questions: (a) If an American Bar, which knows these things better because it all happened in America, told them they could not meet the burden of proof even for a mere violation of rules of professional conduct, why did they arrest me in Nigeria and accuse me of committing a crime on the same 1.55 million dollars? And (b) Why are they saying I stole money?

A2

This is the Email that Nigerian Ambassador wrote to Farida Waziri that led to my being arrested and detained in Nigeria. From this Email, you can see that the Ambassador could not even mention my name. Also, he could not even remember the amount involved. And he did not say that I committed a crime. He only said I was "sitting on the Embassy money". He then directed that I be arrested. He acknowledged that the case was already in American Court. Question: (b) Is this how Nigerian justice should work? (b) If we were already in court in America and you detain me for 5 months in Nigeria, is it not clear that you want to keep me out of the court in America so you can win by a default judgment?

A3

This is the secret order-to-detain, which the EFCC obtained on February 22, 2011, after already detaining me for 8 days illegally. But note something about this order. There are many problems: (a) The most important problem is that the order says that I was brought before the judge (which is the way the law demands that it be done). But I was never brought before the judge. The law does not leave an option for that sort of order to be issued without the suspect being present in court. So, either that the judge deliberately lied or the EFCC took someone else and pretended it was me. But there is another question: Since the order paper indicated that I was a lawyer, it would have been easy for the judge to know whether the person they told him was Emeka Ugwuonye was indeed a lawyer. A judge would not order a lawyer detained without speaking with him or hearing from him in court, where there is no lawyer representing him. 

Another problem: the order was so emphatic on my being an Igbo. What sort of criminal justice system dwells on the ethnicity of the suspect. So, justice is dispensed in Nigeria based on ethnicity. Also, the languages indicated in the order tells you something horrible about Nigeria. I am not an ethnocentrist, but it is clear that an Igbo man is disadvantaged in the Nigerian criminal justice system. This is particularly so in my case because nearly all the top officials of the EFCC are non-Igbos. Indeed, no single one of them involved in my case was an Igbo. And the judge who probably lied in the order was not an Igbo either. They cannot say that my being an Igbo person was irrelevant. Otherwise, why did they have to put that in their order? 

And finally, the EFCC lied about the offences they said I committed. Eight days after arresting me, they were still pretending that I committed (i) Criminal Breach of Trust (under the Penal Code of Northern Nigeria) (ii) Misappropriation of Public Funds and (iii) Money Laundering. Can you see how the story has changed from what they told the Bar in Washington to the lies they are now telling about me. (If you want to be observant, you would notice that even in important document such as a court order, both the EFCC and the judge could not spell "Misappropriation" correctly). That suggests to you the kangaroo procedure under which they scratched up that order. But that is not all. Note that when the EFCC finally charged me in Abuja, they did not charge me with Misappropriation or Money Laundering. So, they lied about the offences alleged against me just to get an illegal order to detain me.

A4

This is part of the hand-written statement that Ambassador Adefuye gave to the EFCC three weeks after I was detained. You can see that he merely said: "Our plea is that Ugwuonye be made to pay back the money he is owing the embassy". Questions: (a) Where then is the crime of stealing? (b) If I was merely owing the embassy money, do you use arrest and detention to collect a debt? (c) Why are you using the Nigerian police/EFCC to collect money that is "owed" in Washington? (d) Is there no law in Washington where the money was "owed"?