Agbaso: The Triumph Of Good Over Evil |The Source

By Comfort Obi

Let me make a confession from the onset. I am not an entirely un-interested party here.The victim of this unprecedented injustice which, finally, came to an end this glorious Monday of February 15, 2021,  His Excellency, Jude Agbaso, is my cousin.

Even as a Journalist, it is difficult to play blind, deaf, and dumb when your family’s reputation and integrity are inexplicably put on the line. However, I will here, as I have always done, be as straight as humanly possible. I will tell the story as it is. But, you will excuse me if I become emotional here and there.

Until that dark day in 2013-  March, 28 –  Agbaso was the Deputy Governor of Imo State under the administration of former Governor Rochas Okorocha, now a Senator.

I never knew the former DG as a politician. The politician in the family is his elder brother, Chief Martin Agbaso, a man who was going to be former Governor Achike Udenwa’s successor,  but whose victory was brazenly upturned, and snatched from him.

Agbaso Jnr., Jude, that is, is a developmental technocrat, an entrepreneur, a young man with great ideas. Not a politician. It is, therefore, right to say that it was his elder brother, Martin, who lured  him into a relationship with Okorocha, a relationship which brought pain and regret to everybody in the family.

Okorocha and Agbaso Snr. were in the same party at the time, APGA, still are now in APC. To realise his Governorship ambition, Okorocha had decamped to APGA from the PDP, where he met Agbaso. He and Agbaso, who had the sympathy of not a few Imolites, because of the raw deal given to him, decided to work together to sweep the then incumbent Governor, Ikedi Ohakim, the beneficiary of  the short- end of the stick, given to Agbaso Snr in 2007,  out of office. The two of them made a pair nobody could ignore.

They struck a deal.

Okorocha was to be the Governor, while Agbaso, with no intention of being a Deputy Governor, put forward his younger brother.

At the time, Imo people had become tired of Ohakim, over what many of them dubbed his arrogance, foul mouthedness, and the patently false story that he beat up a  Roman Catholic Priest. He never did.

Given Okorocha’s street appeal and oratorical skill, the sympathy for Agbaso senior, and the damaging, but false story that Ohakim beat up a Rev. Father, Okorocha/Agbaso’s victory was assured.

Rochas Okorocha

I have never really confirmed this from Agbaso Snr, but the story which made rounds was that the agreement was for Okorocha to do a one-term, with Agbaso producing the Deputy, and then, in 2015, Agbaso would be the Governor, with Okorocha producing the deputy, and proceed from there to fulfill his perennial Presidential ambition, or go to the Senate. Well, good deal. But in politics, nothing is absolute, and trust is important, is deficient in most politicians.

Incidentally, Agbaso Snr. trusted Okorocha. He was carried away by the hundreds of indigent children, across the country, under Okorocha’s scholarship, using his Foundation. Agbaso Snr. had reasoned, I was told, that anybody who could give free education to that number of children, would have no guile. In politics? Politicians and power? Big mistake.

Anyway, as expected, they won the election. In the first one year or so, all went well. In addition to being the Deputy Governor, Okorocha also gave the Ministry of Works portfolio to Agbaso to oversee. How nice. But a number of people saw it differently. They felt it was a trap. The Deputy Governor did not mind. He was not interested in the contracts. Too soon, he thought. An impact first. He thought they were a team. The Governor, also, appointed the DG’s beautiful wife, Ihuoma, a Special Assistant, just as he appointed his own wife.

Then, suddenly, Okorocha unleashed the trap on an innocent. It unfolded in the second year. The  Governorship seat of 2015  was at stake. Something had to be done to torpedo the alleged succession agreement the Governor reached with his Deputy’s elder brother.

So, out of the blues, an allegation was made against  the Deputy Governor. The allegation had no head or tail. To the DG, it was strange. He couldn’t understand it.

The accusation, they said,   was that a Construction  company called J-Pros, owned by a Lebanese, allegedly,  bribed the DG to the tune of N458m, and bottles of Red Label beverage. The DG thought it was a huge joke. But no. Before one knew it, the Imo House of Assembly, under the Speakership of the late Ben Uwajimogu, voted to begin impeachment proceedings.

Not a few people thought that the Governor would ask the House to stop the nonsense because it never happened.  In deed, he did.

But it was all for show, a cover-up stunt, people said.

Okorocha made to wash his hands off the charade. “I am begging and appealing to the House to forgive and drop the case against my Deputy”, he said one day. Those who understood the intrigues, the  why of the case, shook their heads in disgust. It was a well-paid plan.

The embattled DG went to Court to stop the House of Assembly from continuing with the impeachment. He called it a blackmail. It didn’t work.

All eyes were now turned to the Judiciary headed, then, by the Hon Justice Benjamin Njemanze  to throw the case out. It did not happen.  Instead, shockingly, the CJ constituted a Panel to look into  the  allegations. The Imo Judiciary, at the time, did not have the courage of the Ondo state Chief Judge, who refused to set up an impeachment Panel against Deputy Governor Agboola Ajayi, or that of the late Chief Judge of Kogi State, who threw out that of the then Deputy Governor.

It was so disappointing. This was a well-woven basket.

Pressure was mounted on Agbaso to “honourably resign in order to avoid being impeached.”  But,  he asked: “Resign for what?”,  He got support from family and friends. Stay and get impeached, he was told. Resignation means acceptance of guilt. It’s another trap.

Like play, like play, he was impeached by a kangaroo Panel, and a shamelessly compromised House.

He was not allowed to even confront his “accuser”. There was no evidence. He never saw any kobo. Never knew anything about the money.

After the impeachment, the family got hold of experts to trace the money. It was traced to Dubai and Lebanon. “Na dem-dem.” Agbaso had nothing to do with it. He neither saw, touched, nor smelt the money.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, were called in. They investigated Agbaso, and found him innocent. The report is a public document. He went to Court, thereafter, but in our dear country, the wheel of justice is slower than a tortise.

So, for eight years, Agbaso  looked for justice. For eight years, he suffered indignity. For eight years, he bore the shame of an impeached Deputy Governor. For eight years, he was denied of his entitlements. He suffered pain and humiliation. He spent millions of Naira, in legal fees, in a bid to prove his innocence.

His beautiful wife passed as the “battle” raged. She prayed for the truth to shine  so her husband’s name could be cleared. She prayed for her husband’s integrity to be restored. She did not live for that to be realised.

On the day of her funeral, Okorocha actually had the courage to attend the service at the Mt Carmel Catholic Church, Emekuku. Not a few people were upset. Sensing the anger and tension, the Church leadership played smart. They did not make any provision for him to speak. At such funerals, Governors usually speak.

Yet, not a few people expected Okorocha  to, thereafter,  make arrangements, and remove the burden of impeachment, wickedly tied to the neck of his innocent former Deputy, and restore his honour.

The politics of who  succeeds him in 2019 was more important to him. He had long planned that his  son-in-law, Uche Nwosu, would  succeed him. So, every other person was dispensable.

No wonder he also treated,  despicably,  two other Deputies, afterAgbaso, one of them,  his former man-friday  bosom friend, and ally, Prince Eze Madumere. Before Madumere, he had also descended on his former Chief of Staff, and later, Secretary to the State Government, Sir Jude Ejiogu, all because of his ambition to keep the Governorship seat within the family.

But back to H.E. Jude Agbaso. All the evils done to him were on Monday, February 15, 2021, wiped out by Hon. Justice S.I. Opara of the Imo State High Court.

Agbaso, aside from other victories in other Courts, and the EFCC, had gone to the Imo High Court, asking that his impeachment be upturned, and   declared null and void. It was the only way to go.

The Judgement of February 15 was a consequence of an out-of – court settlement he reached with the Imo State Government, headed by Senator Hope Uzodinma.

Governor Uzodinma saw the foolishness in the State Government continuing with the case. He saw the injustice done to Agbaso. He knew it was man’s inhumanity to man. He knew  continuing with the case would cost the State, at least, N800m  when Agbaso eventually gets a judgement.

He opted to do what any responsible Government would do in the circumstances -reach out to Agbaso.

An agreement was reached. Terms of Settlement were drawn and signed. It was the Terms of Settlement that Justice Opara endorsed.

It was a give-and-take situation.  Agbaso forfeited a lot of his benefits, the legal fees, and much more.

But, this long legal tussle  was not about money. It was about righting the wrong. It was about giving  him back his name, his life.

His integrity and honour have, by this judgement, been restored. The tears have been wiped off his eyes. He can now work with more swagger than ever. His entitlements, as a former Deputy Governor, have been restored. Wherever his late wife is now, she must be relieved and happy and smiling. And so are his over 90-year-old mother, his siblings, relations, and  all those who have had to endure these eight years of untold injustice and trauma.

The chorus at the Agbasos after the judgement was: “The Lord liveth!” Apt.