Supreme Court Judgement: I Remain The Eze Imo --Ohiri

The traditional ruler of Orodo commu-nity in Mbaitoli local council of
Imo State, Eze Agunwa Ohiri has in-sisted that he remains the
au-thentic chairman of the state council of traditional rulers in
spite of the recent Supreme Court judgement, saying that Eze Cletus
Ilomunanya has ceased to be a traditional rul-er when the state
government disposed him last year.

This was just as the mon-arch reiterated that Eze Cletus Ilomunanya
can no longer func-tion as a traditional ruler in the state.

"The leadership of the Imo state council of traditional rul-ers (Eze
Imo) has not changed in spite of the recent Supreme court ruling
because Mr. Cle-tus Ilomunanya is no longer a traditional ruler having
been deposed as the Obi of Obingwu by the state government and
an-other monarch installed in his stead who has been attending
meetings of the traditional rul-ers of Orlu and Imo state", he stated.

He stressed that Ilomunanya "cannot attend such meetings because he is
no longer a tra-ditional ruler and the Supreme Court in its ruling did
not say that he is still the traditional rul-er of his community. Even
if he were still to be a traditional ruler his five year tenure
elapsed by last month January 28, 2015".

He insisted that the prereq-uisite of being a member of the Imo state
council of traditional rulers is that you must be an Eze recognized by
the state govern-ment.

"Imo state government has withdrawn his certIficate of recognition and
staff of office since last year July so Cletus Ilomunanya is only
parading himself as Eze in Abuja because the only constitutional
authority that can recognize anybody as a traditional ruler is the
state gov-ernment and not the presidency or the National Assembly and
he risked being sent to jail for parading himself as the tradi-tional
ruler".
--TheSun