Mr. Chinedu Agu, a past Secretary of the Nigerian Bar Association, Owerri Branch, has published two leaked WhatsApp messages which he says reveal a plan to obtain a court injunction stopping members of the Branch from holding their rescheduled Extraordinary General Meeting on Thursday, 15 October 2026.
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In a statement issued on 12 October 2026 and headed “Fresh, ridiculous update on our collective pursuit for accountability in NBA Owerri”, he called the advice contained in the messages “the jaundiced reasoning of a lawyer”.
WHAT HE SAID
“A WhatsApp message suggesting that those who have misappropriated our money and their supporters are planning to obtain an injunction to stop NBA members from meeting on Thursday 15 October 2026, has leaked.”
“Find below the jaundiced reasoning of a lawyer.”
THE MESSAGES HE PUBLISHED
The first, as he reproduced it:
“I agree with this reasoning that in the light of the pendency of the matter before the EFCC and issues joined in the agency by both Chinedu and Agu, the NBA cannot deliberate on d subject matter but must await the outcome of the report by the Anti graft agency. In that case, a FRA can be filed in any court in Imo state to get an injunction to restrain d rescheduled Thursday meeting.”
The second:
“I have advised and will again advise that in view of the manifest bias, hostility generated by Chinedu Agu’s allegations, the tension on NBA platforms with almost everyone taking a position, battle lines drawn, it will be difficult to have objective discussion on the issue.”
“Most importantly, the allegations are criminal in nature. So by the provisions of Section 36(4) of the constitution, only the security agencies and the courts can inquire into it. The matter is already before the EFCC, so NBA can no longer deliberate on it until EFCC concludes and issues it’s report.”
“On the above grounds, a fundamental rights action seeking to enforce the right to fair hearing will succeed faster.”
The second message is cut off in the material Mr. Agu published.
HIS RESPONSE
“Having locked us out on Saturday, it now appears that our Chairman and his co-travellers are plotting to procure an ex parte injunction to prevent us from holding our rescheduled meeting on Thursday, 15 October 2026.”
“These individuals seem determined to keep breaking their own records of tyranny, desperation and brazen impunity.”
“Apparently, locking lawyers out of their own meeting was not enough. They now seek to enlist the machinery of the courts in their desperate bid to silence all of us.”
THE WARNING
“And let this serve as a word of caution:”
“Any Judge who wants to get popular in Nigeria by stopping lawyers from meeting on Thursday, we shall help his popularity transcend even the shores of this country.”
The statement is signed Chinedu Agu, 12 October 2026.
The meeting in question was requisitioned by 183 financial members of the Branch, who transmitted their requisition to the Chairman on 2 October 2026 and relied on Article 11(5) of the NBA Uniform Bye-Law in fixing it themselves.
It was first scheduled for Saturday, 10 October. On that day Senior Advocates of Nigeria, former Branch Chairmen and Secretaries and other members found the gate to the Magistrates’ Court premises housing the NBA Owerri Bar Centre padlocked, with about eighteen police officers deployed around it. Access was refused on the strength of an oral directive said to have been given on 7 October by the Chief Registrar of the High Court of Imo State that the premises were not to be opened at weekends. A former Chairman, Mr. Dec Madu, announced at the gate that the meeting would be rescheduled for Thursday, 15 October.
The underlying dispute concerns the N100,000,000.00 released to the Branch by the Imo State Government on 24 August 2026, which Mr. Agu asked the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to investigate in a petition of 30 September. The Chairman replied on 5 October denying any misappropriation and inviting the Commission to trace every Branch account from inception.
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