Ozekhome Denies Report Linking Him to Call for Mattawale’s Arrest

Alex Enumah in Abuja

Human Rights activist and senior lawyer, Prof Mike Ozekhome, SAN, has dissociated himself from an online publication, quoting him as saying, ‘Why Has EFCC Not Arrested Yari and Mattawale Bello Despite Similar Court Order’.

While describing the article as disturbing and shocking piece of trash allegedly authored by him, he said, “I did not, never did, nor will I ever contemplate spewing out such odious inanity and banal statement devoid of common sense and reasoning.”

Ozekhome, in a statement in Abuja, described the write-up as a “Lie from the pit of hell.”
He said, “How can I, Matawalle’s friend and lawyer of many years, utter such nonsense? How could I be linked with a statement suggesting meddling into a matter that is subjudice; or media trial, ad homine application of laws; or conviction before trial,when the whole world knows me for preaching and writing human rights, due process  democracy and good governance for over four decades? I hereby wholly denounce the writeup.”

To that extent, Ozekhome urged the public to ignore the statement and its banner headline, because it is false, baseless, unfounded and simply idiotic.
According to him, the report constituted nothing but hallucinations from the fertile imagination of the writer.

“Such statements are spewed by faceless idle internet crawlers that Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, once historically described as “millipedes of the internet.
“It is apposite to note here that the issue of me being the author cannot even arise because the faceless author still quoted an alleged earlier statement purportedly made by me of I defeating the EFCC 11 times.

“I couldn’t have been authoring a statement, yet quoting myself, saying, ‘No wonder the renowned senior advocate, Mike Ozekhome described the anti-graft agency with the following statement, EFCC is a paper tiger, I have taken them to court eleven times and defeated them – Mike Ozekhome SAN.
“Please, ignore the statement and consign it to the trash can of history, where it rightly belongs,” the statement added.