An Awka Magistrate Court presided over by His Worship, Mrs. E.C. Chukwu, has ordered the forceful eviction of a single mother, Ndidi Nzelu (née Enekwechi), from her father’s compound at 25 Enekwechi Street, Ngodo Village, Nise Community, in Awka South LGA of Anambra State.
The court order obtained by newsmen showed that the magistrate had, on Friday, ordered Mrs. Ndidi Nzelu to vacate her father’s compound to a rented apartment which her brothers claimed to have rented for her within the same community.
The court order read in part: “That by 6 p.m. on Sunday, the 19th of April, 2026, the Defendant/Respondent and her belongings must not be found within No. 25 Enekwechi Avenue, Nise.”
Speaking to journalists in tears from her hospital bed at Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Teaching Hospital, the victim, Mrs. Ndidi Nzelu, cried out over what she called “judicial high-handedness,” which seemed to have given a mark of approval to the alleged plan by her brothers to throw her out of the apartment given to her by their father while he was alive.
The victim, who was also involved in a ghastly auto crash on Sunday, 19th April, 2026, alleged that her elder brother, Chief Damian Enekwechi, compromised the legal process to legitimise his evil plans to throw her out of their father’s house under the guise of renovating the family compound.
She lamented that all her properties and personal belongings had been thrown outside the gates of the family compound to be damaged by weather conditions.
Reacting to the development, counsel to Mrs. Nzelu, Mr. John Okoli-Akirika, said that his law firm, which is defending the victim on a pro bono basis, had earlier filed a motion for a stay of proceedings on Thursday, 16th April, 2026, at the Awka Magistrate Court, as the same matter and parties were before the Anambra State High Court.
He further stated that the attention of the magistrate was duly drawn to the pendency of the cases at the High Court, as well as the motion on notice to stay further proceedings on the matter, yet the court went ahead to issue an order of eviction.
He concluded that the manner in which the magistrate rushed to issue such an order was unfair, unjust, and inequitable, maintaining that the order could not withstand the test of judicial review by a higher court.
Also speaking, a legal practitioner, Mr. Ejiofor Umegbogu, said it amounts to judicial rascality for any trial court to ignore a pending application in a matter before it, proceed to hearing, and deliver a ruling the same day.
Mr. Umegbogu explained that by issuing such an order, the court had become functus officio and could not sit on the matter again, yet there was a pending application that had not been determined in the case.
He urged judicial officers to desist from issuing such blanket orders that could bring them to disrepute and contempt in the eyes of the public.
As of the time of this report, the personal belongings and properties of Mrs. Ndidi Nzelu (Enekwechi) were seen scattered outside her family compound along Enekwechi Avenue, while Mrs. Ndidi Nzelu was still hospitalised after major bone surgery on her leg as a result of the car accident.
It could be recalled that Chief Damian Enekwechi had, since January this year, explored every alleged illegal means to eject his younger sister from the family compound, which seems to have received judicial approval through what some analysts have described as a jaundiced and compromised court order.