Governor Hope Uzodinma just fired his Attorney-General and Commissioner of Justice, Cyprian Akaolisa, and it happened with immediate effect.
The news came out Monday through a statement from Declan Emelumba, who handles information for the state. According to Emelumba, Akaolisa has been told to hand over all government property he’s been managing to the state solicitor general and permanent secretary at the Ministry of Justice right away.
What’s interesting is that they didn’t give any reason for the firing.
Akaolisa, who’s a lawyer, first got the job back in June 2020. But his time in office has been pretty bumpy. In May 2021, Governor Uzodinma announced he was firing 20 commissioners, including Akaolisa. But then things got confusing because later that year, the governor said Akaolisa was never actually among the commissioners who got dropped when the cabinet was dissolved. The information commissioner at the time said there had been an “error” when they announced the cabinet dissolution.
The real drama started when Akaolisa got suspended for five years in 2021 by the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee for professional misconduct. The accusation was pretty serious – they said he used his position as attorney-general to help get bail for a murder suspect who had been locked up since 2013.
The suspect, Paulinus Nwanochie, was on trial for allegedly murdering someone named Alphonsus Akuma from Orlu Local Government Area. This wasn’t some minor case – the guy had been standing trial for years.
But here’s where it gets interesting: just last month in April, the Supreme Court ruled on an appeal by Akaolisa and overturned that five-year ban. So he was essentially cleared of the professional misconduct charges.
Now, just a few months after winning his Supreme Court case, he’s out of a job again. The timing is pretty curious, especially since the governor’s office hasn’t said why they’re letting him go this time around.
