Five years after a High Court in Abia State sentenced his only son to death over allegations of phone theft, Mr. Mbaonu O. Mbaonu has renewed a desperate appeal for help, insisting that the conviction was a grave miscarriage of justice.
In 2020 according to a court judgment sharedby PUO, a High Court sitting in the Igbere Judicial Division of Abia State sentenced Mr. Obadiah Mbaonu to death after finding him guilty of armed robbery involving mobile phones. The judgment was delivered by Justice Agwu Umah Kalu, who held that the prosecution proved its case beyond reasonable doubt.
Speaking recently from his home in Ibinaukwu, Igbere, in Bende Local Government Area, the grieving father appealed to the Executive Governor of Abia State, Dr. Alex Otti, OFR, to intervene and review the case, stressing that his son was innocent and wrongly convicted.
“My son is innocent; he was framed up,” Mr. Mbaonu said, fighting back tears as he pleaded for mercy and justice for the only child he has.
Court documents obtained by Promise Uzoma Okoro show that the case, Charge No. HIG/1C/2017, stemmed from the arrest of Obadiah Mbaonu on January 1, 2017, when he was about 20 years old, and his subsequent arraignment later that year.
The prosecution alleged that on January 1, 2017, at Igbere, the defendant robbed Engineer Kalu I. Kalu of a Nokia Lumia phone valued at ₦120,000 and a Huawei MT7-TL10 phone valued at $600. It was alleged that the robbery was carried out while the defendant was armed. Mbaonu pleaded not guilty to the charge on October 12, 2017.
During the trial, the prosecution called five witnesses and tendered four exhibits, including a Huawei phone allegedly recovered from the defendant.
In his 2020 judgment, Justice Kalu noted the constraints of the law in pronouncing sentence, stating:
“I wish I had the powers to pronounce another sentence on the convict other than death… The sentence of the court upon you is that you be hanged by the neck until you are dead.”
After the judgment, Mbaonu was transferred from Afara Correctional Centre in Umuahia to the Enugu Correctional Facility. His family alleges that since the transfer, the case file has remained missing, further complicating efforts to pursue legal remedies.
Five years on, the father says the pain has not eased. He continues to appeal to Governor Otti to exercise his constitutional powers to look into the matter, insisting that the conviction arose from a personal vendetta linked to a longstanding land dispute.
“I am begging for help,” he said. “This is my only son. I believe the truth will come out if this case is properly reviewed.”
