Owerri, Imo State, 10 October 2026
Human rights lawyer and former General Secretary of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Owerri Branch, Chinedu Agu, has been released on bail following several hours of detention by the Nigeria Police Force.
According to a statement issued by Agu after his release, titled “I am back and stronger”, he received a call yesterday morning from an Assistant Commissioner of Police inviting him over a petition that required him to see the Commissioner of Police very urgently. On arrival at the Special Investigation Bureau Unit in the company of scores of lawyers, he was handed over to the X Squad Unit, the same unit involved in a previous matter concerning him in September 2025.
Agu stated that the petition, which alleged impersonation and conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace, was written by Godson Killiwe Nwachukwu, Esq., at the instance of the Chairman of NBA Owerri, Dr. Mazi Udegbulem.
He expressed sadness that, of all lawyers in Nigeria, Imo State, Owerri and the NBA Owerri Branch, it was Godson Killihim Nwachukwu who allowed himself to be used in this manner. Agu noted that the first paragraph of the petition introduced the writer as a financially up to date member of NBA Owerri, yet a fake stamp was affixed to the document with very weak gum. The stamp had expired in March 2020, suggesting that the last payment of practising fees, branch dues and welfare levies may have been in 2019.
Agu questioned why the chairman continues to make deliberate efforts to frustrate gatherings at which questions of accountability would be raised. He asked what the chairman is hiding and why the police were procured to keep him behind bars and frustrate the requisitioned meeting scheduled for the following day. The extraordinary general meeting was requisitioned by 183 members as at 2 October, a figure that had risen to 257 by the day of the detention. Agu stated that he has never seen the petitioner at any meeting of NBA Owerri and that the petitioner is not a financial member of the branch.
Senior lawyers, including Declan Madu and Chidi Nworka, spent several hours with Agu at the police facility until late in the night when he was granted bail. He expressed the view that, but for their intervention, he might have been held in one of the cells as on a previous occasion. Other senior members of the Bar who accompanied him also remained until the end of the process. Agu gave special thanks to Prof. Chidi Odinkalu for escalating the situation through his social media account.
In his statement, Agu said the experience showed that, as a society, people are not ready for conversations on accountability and that, as lawyers, cronyism has been enthroned. He noted that the roles played by different individuals in the invitation and detention have been recorded, and that he has lost respect for many individuals whom he had previously held in high esteem.
The detention occurred against the background of an ongoing dispute within NBA Owerri over the management of a N100 million grant received by the branch from the Imo State Government. Members have requisitioned the extraordinary general meeting to consider the crisis and to chart a way forward.
By A.Ikechukwu
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