The family of Usifo Ataga, the late Super TV CEO, has engaged the services of Mike Ozekhome, a senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN), to pursue justice for their murdered son.
The family broke the news in a statement to TheCable Lifestyle on Sunday.
In a letter addressed to the lawyer and human rights activist, the family faulted the alleged “low level of professionalism exhibited so far by the police.”
This, according to the family, is stifling efforts to ensure those behind Ataga’s murder are brought to book.
The family also accused Hakeem Odumosu, the Lagos state commissioner of police, of “attempting to protect the killers of Ataga.”
Buttressing its point, the family cited the arraignment of Chidinma Ojukwu, the alleged murderer of the deceased, without being informed.
The family also decried the alleged comfortable movement of Chidinma from prison to court and from court back to the prison using Uber ride.
The family alleged that the man who claimed to be Chidinma’s father — and was recently charged for alleged obstruction of justice — was not her biological dad but her “sugar daddy”.
Similarly, they faulted the recent one million naira bail granted to Chidinma’s father as well as Babalola Disu, another suspect in the case, by a magistrate court in Lagos.
The family described the “acts by the police as a slap on their face, the face of justice and a deliberate cover-up by the police.”
They tasked Ozekhome and his chambers to take up the case and “ensure that justice is manifestly done to the memory of late Usifo through a very professional prosecution of all those involved in this heinous crime, no matter how highly placed they may be.”
Ataga was stabbed to death and left in the pool of his own blood inside a Lagos hotel on June 15.
Chidinma was thereafter arrested in connection with the murder.
The 21-year-old student had earlier confessed to stabbing Ataga “twice on the neck side,” alleging that the businessman forcefully had sex with her.
But in a dramatic twist, Chidinma denied her initial confession that she killed the Super TV CEO.
