By Nsan Ndoma-Neji, Calabar
A Calabar High Court has barred an Igbo association from organising the proposed December 10, 2022 Igbo Cultural Day celebration in Calabar.
This followed the granting of an interim injunction, restraining the Igbo people, resident in Calabar , from holding anything like cultural day.
The Igbo people living in Calabar had been living in peace and harmony with one another until this year’s election, which held in June 2022, where factions that had almost torn the people apart emerged, leading to litigation in court.
While a faction is led by Kingsley Kalu, the other faction is being led by Prince Raymond Atulomah; and both factional leaders, unfortunately hailed from Abia State.
Since the election, entreaties from stakeholders to make these two factional leaders sheath their swords had yielded no fruitful result, a situation that led both factions to seek redress in court to determine who the authentic leader is.
Irked by the development, one of the faction leaders, Mr. Atulomah, had approached the court seeking to be given recognition as the authentic President of Igbo Community in Calabar, having contested unopposed in an election and being an indigene of Abia State, where the position was zoned to ab initio.
Atulomah prayed the court to restrain the other faction, the defendants in the suit, from holing Igbo Day in Calabar.
On the contrary, the other faction led by Kalu, paid deaf ears and continued to parade themselves as the authentic leaders of the association and even went ahead to propose Igbo cultural day celebration on Saturday, December 10, 2022 at the Management Development Institute, MDI, without recourse to the pending court case.
In a ruling on an ex-parte motion in suit no HC/MSC.207/2022 between Comrade Agu Onyekachi, Raymond Atulomah, David Ihesiulo, who are the claimants, and Sam Ebo, Esq, Elder Bassey Ukiwo, Pol Nwokolo, Jeremiah Ezeagu and Sir. Ebere Okonkwo, the defendants, the presiding judge, Justice Elais O. Abua, restrained the defendants from holding any event, by whatsoever name or under whatsoever umbrella in Calabar.
After hearing Alphonsus A. Uzoma Esq. for the claimants/applicants, praying the court for an order of interim injunction restraining the defendants, privies and agents, particularly the purported elected executives of the Igbo Community in Calabar from holding any event, by whatsoever name or umbrella called, pending the determination of the motion on notice and the court examining the application exparte sought, affidavit evidence of the 1st claimant/applicant and also noting the oral submission of Mr. Uzoma, Justice Abua granted “an order exparte to last for 14 days only of today unless the December, 2022 hereby ordered and granted in prayer 1 only.”
