Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) Mike Ozekhome has expressed concern over actions of alleged fraudsters using his name to raise money for the prosecution of cases involving the Biafra nation agitator, Nnamdi Kanu. Ozekhome is the lead attorney for the imprisoned self-declared leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
Ozekhome asserted that he has never instructed anybody or any organisation to gather money, either in his name or the name of his Chambers, in order to contact private citizens or business entities for money to carry out cases for his client.
A widely circulated social media rumour that certain persons were travelling the nation looking for financial support from private citizens and business entities for attorneys handling cases for the arrested Biafra leader sparked the top lawyer’s response.
However, Ozekhome separated himself and his legal practise from seeking funding to forward Kanu’s lawsuits in a statement published in Abuja and provided to our correspondent.
Ozekhome noted in the statement he personally signed that he took up the causes of the incarcerated Biafra nation activist not for financial gain but rather to free him from the Nigerian gulag.
He said that the con artists prowling around financial institutions and the affluent individuals requesting donations are government agents being paid to threaten Kanu’s legal team, which he oversaw.
Ozekhome proposed that security personnel go after the suspected fraudsters in order to apprehend them and prosecute them in accordance with the law.
He issued a warning that any group found soliciting money in his name or that of his Chambers, as well as the contributors, will be forced to answer for their actions in court.
The statement read in part “My attention has been drawn to the criminal and unauthorized use of my name and that of my Chambers in the social media and other platforms by unscrupulous societal miscreants and criminal elements in soliciting for funds allegedly for the prosecution of Nnamdi Kanu’s cases that we are presently handling.
“The general public is hereby alerted that, I as the lead counsel for Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the leader and founder of the Indigenous People of Biafra IPOB, my Chambers, have never and will never in any way, authorize anyone, whether as an individual, group of persons, corporate bodies or authorities, to solicit for funds for me or on my behalf or on behalf of my Chambers for the purpose of prosecuting cases for Nnamdi Kanu or any other purpose.
“Anyone giving out money on my behalf or in my name or Chambers’s name allegedly for the purpose of prosecution of Nnamdi Kanu does so at his or her own risk and peril.
” Neither, I as the lead counsel to Nnamdi Kanu nor anyone else working with me in my team on the matters will ever approach anyone or donors, or corporate bodies, local or international, either through social media or by any other channel howsoever, to solicit for funds for the prosecution of the Nnamdi Kanu’s cases under any guise.”
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