Notoriously corrupt Justice Mary Odili of the Supreme Court, who is also wife to former Governor Peter Odili arm-twisted Supreme Court Justices to postpone judgement in the case against Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State who allegedly submitted fake and false tax documents to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to run for the Governorship seat in 2015, pointblanknews.com investigation has revealed.
Armed with a huge financial war chest from the Governor, it was gathered that, Wole Olanipekun, SAN, who is the Legal Consultant to Ikpeazu, had prevailed on the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen to include Justice Odili on the panel to hear the matter.
Olanipekun reportedly said the best he could do was to change the panel and include their hatchet person, Justice Odili.
Justice Odili was not named on the panel to hear the matter between Ikpeazu and Nwosu. Her sudden appearance at the panel was shocking to judicial observers who know her as not just an interested party but a corrupt Supreme Court Justice.
Another member of the governor’s legal team, Theo Nkire boasted that what Justice Odili cannot do for him is what is not possible. Justice Odili was Nkire’s classmate at the law school.
According to a source, Nkire narrated how Mary Odili, then a Magistrate in the early 1980s, sitting at Elimgbu, Port Harcourt, Rivers State, helped him in an auto accident where he was at fault. He said then Magistrate Odili turned the case against the plaintiff to his favor. The case brought Nkire and Mary’s husband and former Rivers Governor Odili close.
Since the long adjournment was gotten, Olanipekun had continued to boast of how he performed a major feat by working for the change of the Justice Musa Dattijo Muhammed panel earlier scheduled to hear the matter, as Ikpeazu had threatened last year that Olanipekun should seek to dissolve the Supreme Court.
Pointblanknews.com learnt that the panel had earlier fixed judgment on March 23, 2018 before Justice Odili who is notorious for judicial corruption, went into action pleading with justice Olabode Rhodes-Vivour to change the date to April 13, 2018.
Apparently celebrating the long adjournment at the Supreme Court, Nkire had told one of his friends that Justice Odili informed him that though Ikpeazu’s case is a hopeless one as documents available to the Supreme Court Justices shows he indeed has a bad case, the three months adjournment would enable them “reach the panel and ensure victory April 13, 2018.”
Olanipekun’s main challenge is now how to buy over the highly principled head of the panel, Justice Olabode Rhodes -Vivour and some other no nonsense members, but the senior Advocate had expressed hope that with Justice Mary Odili as a member of the panel, their plans will work out without hitches.
Justice Odili , widely known as a fixer in judicial circles, has vowed that she will use her office to ensure that her in-law Ikpeazu, is not booted out of office, despite the obvious inconsistencies on his document submitted to INEC.
Justice Mary Odili (formerly Mary Ezenwa), hails from Mbaise, Imo State with the late mother of the Abia First Lady, Nkechi.
Tongues are still wagging over her involvement in several cases of perversion of justice since she became a judicial officer. Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, had publicly acknowledged Justice Mary Odili and her husband, Peter, as consultants and advisers on the election petition case filed against him by the APC governorship candidate in the State, Dakuku Adol Peterside in 2015.