If the information reaching 247ureports.com is anything to go by, then the last may not have been heard about the outcome of the ruling of Court of Appeal in the election petition filed by the member representing Ideato State constituency in the Imo State House of Assembly, Mr. Ikechukwu Amuka against the ruling of the lower tribunal as the lawmaker reportedly sold his gigantic four-star hotel, Eastern Emirates Hotels and Suites Owerri to Governor Rochas Okorocha to get a favourable Appeal Court ruling.
The hotel, situated along Yar’adua Drive off World Bank Road within the state capital, was reported to have been sold indirectly to Governor Okorocha at the sum of N59 million to help influence the judges of the Court of Appeal so as to give him favourable judgment.
An Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Owerri, the state capital had in October, 2015 nullified the election of Mr Ikechukwu Amuka (APC) for forging his West African School Certificate, WASC, result with which he contested the 2015 house of assembly election.
The tribunal also ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to immediately issue certificate of return to Ms. Nkechinyere Ugwu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the position.
But, the Court of Appeal sitting in Owerri, in December upturned the ruling of the lower tribunal and gave judgment in favour of Amuka to the amazement of the majority of the people of the state.
However, according to family sources, prior to the Appeal Court ruling, Amuka was compelled to approach Governor Okorocha to save his job and restore his mandate.
The governor, one of the sources said, reportedly told the embattled lawmaker that the only way he could assist him was for him (Amuka) to bring the sum of N59 million with which to bribe the Appeal Court judges as according to the governor, the state’s treasury was empty.
“Hon. Amuka told him sincerely that he had no such money and that he spent a lot of money during his campaigns and that of the governor and that he invested bulk of what he made in the last administration in the hotel bsuiness. You know the way oga (Okorocha) behaves na. He doesn’t like to give you anything without first getting more from you. So, that was how he asked Amuka to submit the documents of his hotel so that he would be able to assist.
“You can imagine that this governor is a man who also desperately needed APC to retain his own Ideato South state constituency seat and yet he was making a lot of demands and couldn’t even render any help”, the source said.
The source added that Amuka was compelled to relinquish the originals of his hotel documents to Okorocha, who later used his position to influence the outcome of the Appeal Court ruling in favour of his APC kinsman.
247ureports.com reliably gathered that Amuka’s wife had warned her husband against selling the hotel in pursuit of the case and that they should enjoy the benefit they had made in the last four years.
“But, this did not go down well with Amuka, who desperately wanted to clean the forgery spot in his name because of his ambition to run for House of Representatives seat for Ideato Federal Constituency in 2019”, the source said.
The source disclosed that in order to ensure that Amuka did not regain the ownership of the hotel, Governor Okorocha had gone ahead to strip the lawmaker of all the avenues with which he was making money in the past including, his poaition a chief whip of the house of assembly and the juicy committees he was heading in the past.
Amuka, it was further gathered, had been struggling to bounce back through the state house of assembly, but situation was made worse by his kinsman and principal secretary to the governor, Dr. Paschal Obi, who was said to be nursing the ambition to run for Ideato Federal Constituency seat in 2019.
According to the information making the rounds, the principal secretary had been using his position to also influence the members of the state house of assembly to ensure that Amuka remains at the back seat with little or nothing to show for his representation.
When this medium called his phone line for confirmation, Amuka could not answer his calls, but one of the aides of the lawmaker told our reporter in confidence that Amuka’s wife had been downcast and could not bear to see her husband losing the gigantic hotel he suffered to put in place.
