Imo court dismisses “laughable” case by Chukwudi Ugorji, others over late father’s burial

By Vivian Iwu

The Aboh Mbaise Customary Court sitting at Enyiogwugwu, Imo State, on Thursday, May 29, 2025, dismissed with prejudice a suit filed by Anthony Chukwudi Ugorji and three others bordering on the burial of the late father.

The suit sought to disrupt the plans of Dr. Ugorji O. Ugorji and the Lorji Nwekeukwu Autonomous Community to give their revered late traditional ruler, HRH Eze Stephen Nwabueze Ugorji, a befitting farewell.

Other Plaintiffs to the suit were Benedict Chiedo Ugorji, “a Pastor”, Richmond Ugorji, and Olivia Ohuegbe (nee Ugorji).

Eze Ugorji, who was the Orji Ukwu 1 of Lorji Nwekeukwu Autonomous Community in Aboh Mbaise, died earlier this year at the age of 91.

He was buried with dignity and fanfare on May 22 in his palace after a Catholic funeral mass officiated by Bishop Okezuo Nwobi of the Ahiara Diocese.

Prior to the burial, in a development that stunned the Mbaise nation, four of his children who had not visited Nigeria in over fifteen years, sued their eldest brother, the former Commissioner for Homeland Security in Imo State, Dr. Ugorji Okechukwu Ugorji.

In the suite (No. CC/EN/8/2025), filed on their behalf by Barrister E. O. Eke, they sought what was described by the judge as “a mischievous and misguided” interlocutory injunction against the late Eze’s first son.

The injunction sought to bar Dr. Ugorji from burying their father in the palace of the late traditional ruler.

The late HRH Eze Stephen Nwabueze Ugorji

Diaspora Digital Media (DDM) learnt that they, the four Plaintiffs and their collaborators, wanted to knock down the palace of the late Eze.

Dr. Ugorji’s lawyer, Mr. Franklin N. Nwaoku, Esq. of Duruaku and Associates law firm in Owerri, filed a response on his behalf.

Mr. Nwaoku, objecting to the lawsuit and the attempt at interlocutory injunction, called the claims and motion for injunction a travesty, “a taboo” and “an abomination” against the customs and traditions of the people, if granted.

Nwaoku stated that Dr. Ugorji had spent the last four years with his father in Imo State and had spent the last three months planning for the burial of his father.

Also, he had spent over twenty-six million Naira as of April 2025 on the late monarch and the burial arrangements.

Meanwhile, the plaintiffs were relaxed in America and refused to even come home to see their father’s corpse.

Dr. Ugorji and his lawyers appeared in court four times, while the Plaintiffs, in a brazing act of unseriousness, never showed up in the courtroom for once.

They only appeared at Locus, which took place in the late Eze’s compound at Lorji.

On May 16, 2025, the court denied the motion for interlocutory injunction, describing a central submission of the plaintiffs as “laughable.”

The court panel led by His Worship F. A. Okolie upheld the customary right of the first son (Opara) to decide where his father would be buried.

On May 29, 2025, the same court dismissed the entire case for abandonment.

The lawyers for the plaintiffs told the court that they were instructed by their American clients to withdraw the case.

In accepting the notice to withdraw, Barrister Nwaoku told the court that the case was baseless, meaningless and should never have been used to harass and traumatize Dr. Ugorji and the community.

In abandoning their case, the Plaintiffs also abandoned their four challenges and claims in the misadventure.

The effect of the dismissal was that the first son of the late monarch remains the owner of the Isi-Obi (main compound) of the late traditional ruler.

This includes the palace and the house of the late traditional ruler.

It also held that the first son gets to decide where to bury his late father and that the first son, who had supported his father for over thirty years in the struggle for the Ezeship, remains the custodian of the father’s estate until a date after the mourning period.

That is when he would be ready to share the estate among the Eze’s eight children.

See the front page of the court ruling below:

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