A widow, Chief (Mrs) Elizabeth Asie Iheme has faulted a will presented by her late husband’s family saying the document was contrived by her in-laws in a bid to allegedly take over her late husband’s property in Lagos and Abia State.
The distraught widow, whose husband, Chief Emeka Emenike Iheme, died on December 6, 2016, also faulted the police for misleading the court to strike out a case of forgery of Will of her late husband involving a lawyer and her in-laws.
The woman, a Sierra Leonean, urged the Lagos State government, the Inspector General of Police to wade into the matter with a view to preventing her in-laws from throwing her out of her late husband’s house with whom she had two children.
A copy of a petition forwarded by her lawyer, Dan Enakadia, to the office of Attorney General of Lagos State and Commissioner for Justice, Inspector Gnereal of Police and Sierra Leone Embassy in Lagos, disclosed that a brother to Mrs Iheme’s late husband called Kachi Iheme, colluded with other siblings and a female legal practitioner, Doris Ikpeazu to forge a Will that stripped her and her children right to the property left behind by her late husband.
The petition reads in part: ‘’This forged Will was prepared and signed by Barrister Doris Ikpeazu, who called Chief (Mrs) Elizabeth Asie Iheme by phone to come that her late husband’s will was about to be read. Chief (Mrs) Elizabeth Asie Iheme decided to send one Barrister Ike Asuzo to go and represent her and also send a copy of the Will to her.
“When she received a copy of the Will which is enclosed in this letter, she discovered some discrepancies in the Will which came at a time she was yet to finish the mourning of her late husband. Some people came to their compound armed with instruments of violence at her late husband’s in Isheri, Alimosho, Lagos, and secretly wrote caveat emptor inscriptions on the wall and fence of the house titled ‘’ This house is not for sale’’.
The petition said after the men left, her son, Sullivan Emeka Iheme erased the caveat emptor inscriptions, but those behind the inscriptions returned seven days later to re-write it during which they were pursued by neighbours who apprehended one of the suspects and handed him to the Area ‘M’ Police Command at Idimu in Alimosho council area.
The petition reads further: ‘’The matter which was later handled by the Force Criminal Investigation Department, (FCID), Alagbon, Ikoyi, Lagos, showed through the report of a forensic investigation that the purported Will, which is the crux of the matter is a forged Will by Barrister Doris Ikpeazu, who acted in concert with the brothers of the late Chief Emeka Emenike Iheme.
“The late Chief Iheme lived in Lagos, did all his businesses in Lagos, built the house he lived before his death in Lagos, was sick in Lagos and died in Lagos. He was about to do the house-warming ceremony of his new house in his village in Isikwato Local Government Area of Abia State, when he fell ill in Lagos and also died at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH).
“The widow of the late Chief Emenike Iheme, on receiving a copy of the Will saw discrepancies and evidence (the deceased’s name was written as Emelike instead of Emenike with a different signature) to show that the Will is fake and not genuine. This made her to report to the Police at Alagbon Close, Lagos, who carried out forensic investigation into the Will and came out with findings and report that the Will is forged.’’
‘’By reasons of jurisdiction, if there is need for any legal contest of the Will, it should be Lagos and nowhere else and also in the Lagos State High Court, Ikeja. Investigation has been ongoing and headed by one DSP Onun Arikpo of FCID, Alagbon. It is expected that arrangements should have been made to arrest the assailants in Abuja, Onitsha and Lagos, since the legal practitioner who is also involved in the forgery of the Will has already been arraigned in Magistrate Court 3, Igbosere, Lagos, and the matter struck out on the ground that investigation has been concluded and transferred to Abuja. Striking out the matter because the file is being transferred to Abuja is unprocedural(sic). What should have been done is that since investigation has been concluded is for legal advice to have been sought with a view to getting the matter transferred to the appropriate court, which is the Lagos State High Court, Ikeja.
The petition added: ‘’We implore the Attorney General of Lagos State to wade into this matter by taking over and prosecute the culprits involved in this matter, since it has the jurisdiction and power in this case, and also help the poor widow, and her children, who are hiding and cannot for now live a steady life, so as to be able to work or trade to earn a living since their bread winner is no more.’’
In his response, Chief Kachi Iheme however described the allegations as totally unfounded saying that the widow was only trying to curry sympathy in order to prevent the family from executing the content of the Will, part of which she was also a beneficiary.
“I am not a lawyer, but I have not seen a lawyer who will forge a Will and put her career on the line by going to court to register such a will. She(Mrs Iheme) was invited to the reading of the Will in court and she sent a lawyer to represent her and the greater part of the Will of my late brother was willed to her and no member of our family has taken anything from what was given to her. The next thing she did was to write a petition to the police that the lawyer who handled the Will compromised. The lawyer was arrested and detained at FCID, Alagbon, Lagos. She also wrote a petition to the Inspector General of Police over this matter.
“However, the only thing that concerns me in this matter is that I was appointed by my late immediate elder brother as one of the Executors of the Will.I live in Abuja and I don’t live in Lagos. Although she is married to my late brother but she had no child with him. She came from the Gambia to Nigeria with a son she had for someone else. I have my own house and I live comfortably; I have a house in the village and in Abuja and nobody in the family has even attempted to enter into the property of my brother since he died. While I was in London I heard that she was planning to sell her husband’s house in Lagos, and this was just after she had sold a Ford Edge car worth a sum of N16 million for just N6 million. All what we are saying is that she should not sell the house without the consent of the family because her late husband stated in the Will that the house should be sold (by the Executors of the will) and that half of the proceeds should go to her. There is a court order asking her not to sell the house and she has also confirmed that she sold the Ford Edge car and there are four cars in their a Lagos house. One of the cars, a Chevrolet was willed to one of my brothers. I have more than seven cars here in Abuja, what do I need her husband’s cars for?
“She has gone to Facebook to tout my name and malign me. She does not have any child with my late brother. The girl she is referring to as her daughter is actually the child of my mother’s younger brother and the girl has been living with my late brother since her childhood and she is in her final year in the university. Her son, Sullivan, who she claimed to have with my late brother is not actually my brother’s child. She had the boy in the Sierra Leone and the boy came to Nigeria about six years ago. I am not bothered and I am even surprised she is mentioning my name in a bad light.
“If she says the Will is fake, then the proper thing to do is to produce the original which is kept in the court to disprove the authenticity of the one being circulated as fake. I don’t see how a lawyer could fake a Will that would not give her any benefits. Why didn’t she go to court to say the Will is not genuine and contest the authenticity of the will? She went to report to the police and now the police are saying we want to investigate the matter again and she is running away again, so what is her problem? Let me say this, all she wants is to scare away every member of the family from coming close to the house of my late brother, so she can do whatever she likes with the house and it will be a shame to my entire family if I sit back and allow that happen.’’
The distraught widow however explained that she was asked to sell the car in order to raise a sum of N1 million demanded by her brother in-law(Kachie Iheme) for the burial of her husband.
She said: “Although, a kinsman of my late husband had donated a sum of N5 million to cover his burial expenses, yet, his brother(Kachie) asked me to raise a sum of N1 million for the burial, and he agreed to the sale of the car for the purpose, so I don’t know why he is now trying to use it against me?.”
Contacted, Barrister Ikpeazu said the widow should seek legal redress in court, if she is not satisfied with the content of the Will.
She said: ’’ I am a qualified lawyer. I graduated in 2015. If she (the widow) is aggrieved, she should go to a court and seek redress and not through the media. And I don’t think I should be talking to a journalist about a matter should be properly addressed by a court.’’
A highly placed source at FCID, Alagbon, said the matter might have been struck out by the court to allow for conclusive investigation.
“ I don’t think the information that the matter was struck out because of the conclusion of investigation is correct. The only reason why a trial can be stopped is when the investigation is inconclusive, hence, the need for proper investigation.’’
