Court resumes trial of lawyer over murder of husband in A’Ibom

More facts have emerged in the trial of a 36-year-old lawyer, Abasiesebanga Ikoiwak, and five others, over the gruesome murder of her 41 years old husband, Mr Godwin Ikoiwak.

Until his death in January 2022, Godwin, a native of Eket Local Government Area, was a State Counsel at the State Ministry of Justice.

At the hearing of the matter before an Uyo High Court, a friend and classmate of the deceased in the Faculty of Law, University of Calabar, Mr Sunny Anyanwu, said the deceased told him in a phone conversation a few days before his death that he and his wife, Abasiesebanga were having issues over infidelity.

According to him, the deceased hinted to him that he reported the matter to his wife’s family who invited him for a meeting in their family compound at Nung Udoe Itak in the Ikono LGA but had yet to return home alive.

Anyanwu, who is the 7th prosecution witness in the matter, also noted that the late Godwin told him that Abasiesebanga was having a sexual relationship with her former boss, a legal practitioner.

He added that the deceased husband told him that his wife had stayed with a Catholic priest, as a house help and the Catholic priest impregnated her and they had a child, who is now 19 years old named after his maternal grandfather.

According to the prosecution witness, the late Godwin did not know that the boy who had been living with him in his house for many years, was his wife’s son, noting that the wife had told him that the child was her younger brother’s son.

The witness said the deceased told him that each time his wife told him that she was pregnant, he never set his eyes on her, until after the delivery of the baby, when she would present it to him and, said, “This is your child.”

The prosecution team led by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Akwa Ibom State, Mr Joseph Umoren tendered the audio recordings of the phone conversation between the witness and the late Godwin as an exhibit which was admitted in evidence after the audio was played in the open court without any objection by the defendant’s counsel.

Abasiesebanga is standing trial alongside her mother, 66 years old Margaret Patrick Umoh, her brother, Owoidoho Patrick Umoh, a Catholic priest and 51-year-old Reverend Father Gabriel Ekong, and a medical doctor, Isaac Njoku who are charged with issuing a false report on the cause of Godwin’s death.

The court presided over by Justice Bassey Nkanang adjourned the case till April 20 for the continuation of the hearing.