OPINION
Open Letter to His Excellency, Dist. Senator Hope Uzodimma.
By Chinedu Agu
Good afternoon and happy new week, Your Excellency.
I have just returned from my 28-day advanced training at the Owerri Prisons [pardon me, the Correctional Centre] on Tuesday, 21st October 2025. I must thank Your Excellency most sincerely for that profound opportunity for intense learning and civic exposure.
That remarkable period of confinement also served as a classroom for the entire Nigerian legal community, where a new doctrine emerged — The Njemanzery Doctrine — a bold reinvention of remand jurisprudence under which adjournments may now exceed the statutory 14 days prescribed by the Administration of Criminal Justice Law of Imo State. It is also the doctrine under which a lawyer of known address and pedigree in the jurisdiction can be denied bail in a bailable offence, and a Deputy Chief Registrar, who suspended sitting upon appointment as a DCR, may suddenly resume his judicial roles.
This season of “training” also yielded a groundbreaking unveiling of an unteachable jurisprudence from the Federal High Court, Owerri, called The Wigwe-prudence, which teaches that bail, a constitutional right, cannot be granted in the absence of an information or charge before the court. These great innovations, which were midwifed under your benevolent government, have enriched our jurisprudence and will remain etched in legal history for generations.
For these remarkable lessons, I am grateful, Your Excellency. I stand ready, if so appointed, to attend future “training sessions,” that even more doctrines may be launched into the legal space.
Upon my return to the outside world, I was greeted by encouraging news from our justice sector. An Acting Chief Judge was finally sworn-in, and an Attorney-General appointed, both on 26th September, 2025, a day after my incarceration. I have also noticed, Your Excellency, that many of the roads mentioned in my “defamatory articles” are now receiving attention. That, too, is a commendable response, sir.
Your Excellency, I have recently heard from many that you are indeed a good man with a large heart. The stories insist that the real problem lies with those around you; men and women who profit from your missteps by telling you only what your ears yearn for. I therefore urge you to read this letter privately. And if ever you need to deconstruct its content, do not consult these same men and women who will read defamation and cybercrime into this innocuous piece. Only then will you appreciate the benign intention and patriotic concern behind these words.
While your recent appointments in the justice sector are a welcome step, they remain a mere scratch on the surface of a much deeper wound. The judiciary of Imo State is still gasping for breath, trapped under the rubble of neglect and executive manipulation.
The legal community is alarmed at the sudden appearance of a High Court (Amendment) Law 2022, discovered only three weeks ago, which provides in its Section 42(2) that “where there is no substantive Chief Judge, the Chief Registrar shall assign case files.” This curious law offends Section 271(4) of the Constitution, which clearly provides that an Acting Chief Judge shall perform the functions of a substantive Chief Judge in his absence. Many view this as an execu-lature gimmickry [gimmicks of the Executive and Legislature] and are forced to ask: where was this law when the former Acting Chief Judge assigned cases earlier this year? And, why has the Chief Registrar not been assigning cases after the immediate past Acting Chief Judge was removed?
Given the long, dramatic delay before the current Acting Chief Judge’s appointment and swearing-in, one cannot but find this legislative miracle suspicious. And it is equally strange that of all possible legislative priorities, the Imo House of Assembly found the “assignment of cases” most urgent.
To worsen this gimmickry, there are rumours that the non-statutory members of the Judicial Service Commission have resigned, leaving the vital machinery of the judiciary in partial paralysis until Your Excellency decides to reconstitute it.
Your Excellency, I wish to draw your attention to another bleeding wound: the plight of the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN), Imo State Chapter.
They have just suspended a strike embarked upon a week ago. For one week, the courts remained closed and the wheels of justice firmly stuck. Their grievances are not mere complaints; they are cries for dignity:
1. Non-payment of parts of their salary arrears;
2. Exclusion from the new minimum wage increment;
3. Non-capture of 80% of retired judiciary staff since 2019;
4. Absence of an approved salary structure for judiciary workers; and
5. Exclusion from incentive and welfare schemes.
Your Excellency, it bears reminding that JUSUN members are the lifeblood of the judiciary. They are the bolts and nuts of the justice system. Without them, judges and magistrates cannot function, and justice cannot flow. A state that neglects its judiciary staff undermines not only its courts but the very foundations of its democracy.
If civil servants were to be paid according to the sensitivity and impact of their work, judiciary staff would rank among the highest paid. To treat them as second-class workers is to treat justice itself as a dispensable luxury.
I implore Your Excellency to address their grievances decisively and permanently. Anything short of a holistic resolution will be a bandage on a festering wound.
The plight of Law Officers in the Ministry of Justice is no less disturbing. These are the lawyers who represent the State and defend its policies in court. They are the voice of government in the temple of justice, yet they have become its most neglected servants.
Their September 2025 salaries were mysteriously slashed, with over ₦100,000 deducted per officer. Instead of benefiting from the new minimum wage, they have lost the meagre allowances that made their work bearable. Some still have unpaid salaries dating back to 2015 and 2020.
Your Excellency, these officers fund their official duties from their personal earnings: typing and printing of voluminous processes, transporting witnesses to court, and travelling to distant courts at their own expense. To deny them fair remuneration is to starve justice at its source.
Law Officers are the government’s in-house counsel, the protectors of the State’s legal integrity. They do not seek privilege, they seek only fairness.
And what shall we say of our Judicial Officers; the magistrates and judges who daily dispense justice in your name?
Many magistrates still commute to court in public transport, sharing vehicles with litigants and defendants, sometimes traveling to volatile areas without security or official vehicles. Their last allocation of official cars dates back to 2015 — vehicles so modest they were once nicknamed “KekeNapep on four wheels.” Yet not everyone got; only less than thirty percent of them did. None of the Magistrates appointed in 2019 has any official car. They commute in public vehicles. This is infradig for a judicial officer.
The salaries of Magistrates in the State have been constant since 2019. Promotions have come without corresponding salary adjustments. A Senior Magistrate in 2025 still earns the same salary as when first appointed in 2019. The same story applies to judges; many without functional official cars, working in unconducive courthouses under poor conditions.
A poorly treated judicial officer is a danger to democracy. When justice is impoverished, corruption finds fertile ground.
Your Excellency, a government’s character is also measured by how it treats its justice system. For it is the judiciary that sustains law, and law that sustains civilization.
Yes, some solar panels have been mounted on court buildings and the B. A. Njemanze Pavilion repainted; a commendable gesture. But much of the Magistrate Court complex remains a relic of decay. The High Court and Magistrate Court complexes need asphalting. The road rehabilitation in the High Court area abruptly ends at West Brook Hotel Junction, leaving the court approach in disrepair. The Magistrate Court complex was anticipating a face-lift when the structures at the Judicial Service Commission received a face-lift.
The judiciary of Imo State remains, quite frankly, on life support.
Your Excellency, Thursday, 30th October, 2025 — the Assizes of the Imo State Judiciary — presents a golden opportunity. At that event, Chief Judges and judicial officers from across Nigeria will be present and watching. The question is not whether you will speak, but what you will say.
If your address fails to acknowledge and commit to resolving these issues, it will confirm the widespread belief that this administration has little regard for the judiciary. But if you speak and act with courage and compassion, you will write your name in gold as the governor who revived justice in Imo State. Do not delegate this duty on that day. Be present!
Disregard the sycophants who tell you all is well. History will not remember them. It will remember you; the Governor who either restored or ruined the soul of justice in this State.
Your Excellency, the judiciary is the conscience of government, the custodian of order, and the foundation of every democracy. To ignore its cries is to endanger the very peace and progress of Imo State.
I therefore implore you: heed the call of justice, empower its workers, restore its dignity, and let Imo State rise again as a beacon of law and fairness.
Dispense with the flatterers, and save your legacy from infamy.
* Chinedu Agu, a former Secretary of NBA Owerri Branch, is a human rights lawyer and good governance advocate of Good Governance. He can be reached at lionlegal30@gmail.com
