On September 25, 2025, A Chief Magistrate in the Imo State Judiciary, Mr. Obinna Njemanze, ordered the remand of Mr Chinedu Agu, a lawyer, at the Owerri Correctional Centre for allegedly defaming the State Governor, Mr. Hope Uzodinma, in critical comments of the Administration posted by the lawyer on his Facebook page, although the magistrate acknowledged that he lacked jurisdiction to hear and determine the charges brought against the lawyer.
Magistrate Njemanze orderd the remand of Mr Agu even after he acknowledged that his court lacked jurisdiction to try the lawyer in the matter.
Mr Agu was arrested on September 23 based on a petition by a group called Imo Democratic Alliance, and signed by Umukoro Marvis Udochukwu.
At the September 25 hearing, the magistrate adjourned the case to October 29, 2025 and ordered that the case file be forwarded to the Imo State Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) to assign the case to a court with jurisdiction.
The police accused Mr Agu of allegedly committing the offences contrary to and punishable under section 24(1)(b) of the Cybercrime (Prohibition, Prevention, etc.) Amendment Act, 2024 because of his opinion articles that criticised the administration of Governor Hope Uzodimma, which he shared on his Facebook page.
According to the Imo State Commissioner for Police, the lawyer had, on August 30, 2025, shared an article where he wrote “the courts are closed and justice has been kidnapped not by bandits in the bush, but by bandit in government” and “this, is not government, this is tyranny trapped in sinking bureaucracy”.
The Police Commissioner said Mr Agu knew that his posts were false and could incite the people against Governor Uzodimma and his cabinet, and cause a breakdown of law and order in the state, and thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 24(1)(b) of the Cybercrime (Prohibition, Prevention etc.) Amendment Act, 2024.
Mr Agu, a critic of Uzodimma’s administration, had engaged with the Imo State Commissioner for Information, Mr Declan Emelumba, in a series of public exchanges. His articles, including “Tears from Enugu: A Lawyer’s Heartbreaking Diary from a State that Works to a State in Ruins” and “Imo State – Where Justice Is on Vacation During Court Vacation,” drew sharp rebuttals from Emelumba, who described them as “satanic verses.”
On September 25, Agu’s legal team filed a fundamental rights application before Justice Chituru Wigwe-Oreh of the Federal High Court which granted him bail, but he was not released as the order was said to apply only to the police and did not cover the custodial authority of the Nigerian Correctional Services (NCoS), for which reason he remained in detention. The Federal High Court subsequently instructed Agu’s lawyers to file a fresh application addressing the NCoS.
On October 9, the court asked Mr Agu’s legal team to file a written address on the competence of the bail application, given that no formal charge had been filed against him. The judge noted that the opposing side would be allowed to respond before a final ruling date is fixed. The Court, therefore, adjourned his bail application to October 14, 2025.
However, on October 16, when the court sat, Justice Wigwe-Oreh refused to grant the lawyer bail, citing the absence of any formal charge against Mr Agu as the basis for denying the bail application.
He was eventually released from the Owerri Correctional Centre on October 21 after spending 28 days in detention.
