Jailed schoolteacher remains on Anambra govt payroll

ISAAC OJO, Awka

A primary school teacher in Anambra State, Mrs Agnes Uzoyibo Agbanusi, who was convicted by an Nnewi Chief Magistrate Court on May 8,2015 and serving a six- month jail term has been found to have continued to receive her salaries even as she is still in the prison.

Agbanusi, who was hitherto teaching at Community Primary School, Uruagu Nnewi, Nnewi-North Local Government was convicted in May 2015 by Justice Obiora Obidike on two count charges of conspiracy and giving false information to the police against an Nnewi-based businessman, Mr Bethram Onwunzo.

The teacher, alongside her husband and daughter had falsely accused Onwunso of invading their premises on September 1, 2009 in an attempt to kidnap her husband.

She was charged to court and convicted in the suit No. NMC/23C/2010.

She had in a petition dated September 10, 2009 to the Nnewi police Area Command alleged that one Mr. Bethrand Onwunzo accompanied by “six hefty men whose faces looked strange, covering their faces with black spectacles, wearing black suites” stormed their residence at about 8.30pm on a mission to kidnap her husband, Benneth Izuegbunam. But that luckily for her, her husband who is a security guard at the Nnewi Magistrate Court, had left for his duty post before their arrival.

She also alleged that the apparently infuriated Onwunzo, before leaving their residence that night left a message of threat with their daughter, Chiamaka, that Izuegbunam’s life was in danger and that he would no longer live in or be a citizen of Nnewi.

She noted that she was present at the backyard of their residence when the men came, and that from there she heard their threatening conversation with her daughter who was very frightened.

It was on the basis of the petition that a team of policemen from the Nnewi Area Command, led by PC Nwokike accosted Onwunzo at Nnewi Magistrate Court premises as he was coming out from the court and made to arrest him.

He however quickly escaped into his lawyer’s car as he did not know their identity since they were all in mufti.

But following a petition Onwunzo later forwarded to the police on his behalf by his lawyer, Chief Oseloka Okigwe, it was discovered that contrary to Agnes’s petition, Onwunzo was not even in Nigeria on that fateful September 1 he was alleged to have stormed the defendant’s husband’s residence accompanied by a gang of six alleged kidnappers.

When contacted, the Anambra State Commissioner for Education, Prof. Kate Omenugha and the Chairman of the state Universal Basic Education Board ( ASUBEB), Chief Nzemeka Olisa knowledge of the development.

They however promised to carry out investigation into the matter.

Meanwhile, disappointed that Agnes had continued to enjoy her salaries and other entitlements and privileges as a public servant, Onwunzo had petitioned the state Commissioner for Education, copied Chairman of ASUBEB, Education Secretary, Nnewi-North local Government, Commissioner of Police, Anambra State and the Director, State Security Services (SSS), urging them all to sack the convict from the state civil service and to make sure that all salaries she collected after she was sent to prison was retrieved.

Onwunzo further called for her sack as a teacher, insisting that she lacked the integrity and moral virtues to impact good moral required from her students.