A 70-year-old entertainer, Ms. Uche Ibeto, popularly known as ‘The Jigida Queen’, has petitioned the Chief Justice of Nigeria and the National Judicial Council, NJC, alleging that she was forcefully and unlawfully evicted from her family residence, in Lagos, on the strength of what she described as a ‘fraudulent’ High Court judgment.
The contested judgment, delivered on July 10, 2025, in suit No. LD/9481GCM/2025, awarded possession of the property to Mr. Cecil Osakwe, who claimed to have bought the house from two of Ibeto’s elder sisters, Mrs. Laura Okoh and Mrs. Ifeoma Ilodibe.
Addressing journalists in Lagos, Ibeto said the property, inherited from their late mother, Mrs. Esther Ibeto, had been a long-standing source of family tension and legal disputes.
She said the execution of the judgment on August 15, 2025, left her homeless, insisting neither she nor her sister was served with court processes.
“At my age, I should be resting. Instead, I was thrown out of my home,” she said, adding that her sister, Ifeoma, who lives abroad, never participated in the proceedings.
She linked the matter to lawyer and his client, both currently standing trial in Abuja for alleged land-grabbing through fraudulent judicial processes.
According to her, a man identified as Chiedu was allegedly hired to impersonate her sister in court.
She further claimed that the title document used in the suit, registered as No. 28, page 28, volume 1994E, actually belongs to one Leonard Mbanefo Zeku for a property in Idimu, Alimosho Local Government Area, and not the Surulere home.
“The court was misled with falsified documents and impersonation. The judgment was obtained without the involvement of the real owners or the tenants,”she alleged.
Her lawyers filed applications on September 22, 2025, seeking to set aside the judgment for non-service.
In a phone interview, lawyer to the buyer, rejected all allegations, insisting the judgment was neither rushed nor fraudulent.
He maintained that it was a consent judgment reflecting an agreement signed by the parties, which provided that possession would be handed over after three months if the buyer had not taken it.
“The buyer paid in January 2025. The proceedings in June were simply to enforce possession. It was not contentious,” he said. (Vanguard)
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