Former Imo State governor and senator Rochas Okorocha has accused a political rival of using a vacated court warrant to push the police into arresting him in Abuja. He made the claim in a recent interview. Furthermore, he said a court has now cleared him of forgery allegations.
Okorocha governed Imo State from 2011 to 2019 and later represented Imo West in the Senate. Consequently, any move against him draws national attention. In this case, he says the move began in a magistrate court.
Okorocha said the complainant first asked a magistrate for a warrant. After that, the complainant allegedly told the police to invite him. “He went to Magistrate Court and asked for a warrant, and he has told the police to invite me,” Okorocha said.
According to Okorocha, the first magistrate refused. The complainant then tried about seven magistrates, and all of them declined. Eventually, he found a court near the Kogi border that issued the warrant. However, that magistrate later vacated the order on his own. Okorocha alleges that the police still acted on the vacated document.
Okorocha explained that officers approached him in Abuja, where he attended a function. He immediately asked to see their paperwork. “I told them, ‘Look, which warrant do you have?'” he recalled. Next, he called the Inspector General of Police. “I said, ‘Look at your men. Please call them to order,'” he told the interviewer.
The timing angered him even more. According to Okorocha, the officers arrived at midnight. “Am I an unknown person? The former governor, former senator would be invited, even if I was a criminal,” he said. He added that the Inspector General intervened quickly. As a result, the police never invited him.
Okorocha then turned his attention to the media. He claimed that the same sponsors paid journalists to gather at the police headquarters. Consequently, those sponsors felt disappointed when he did not appear. Soon afterward, they announced that he had been arrested. “The news went so fast that I was arrested for forgery,” he said.
Despite the uproar, Okorocha chose silence. He said he waited for the judiciary to act. “I never made a statement. I never said a word. I wanted the court to speak,” he said. In his account, the court has now spoken clearly and found his documents genuine.
Okorocha also said one person wrote the entire set of results presented in the matter. In his view, that fact points to forgery by someone else. Likewise, he challenged his rival’s claim to have emerged by consensus. “How can he emerge by consensus when there was a contest?” he asked.
Furthermore, he denied certifying any document that supports the rival’s version of events. “These are all forged documents,” he said. He insisted that he did not create them.
Throughout the interview, Okorocha described the episode as a campaign of harassment. He said the effort aimed to humiliate him in public. Meanwhile, he praised the courts for protecting his name. “I’m happy that the court has spoken,” he said, adding that he submits to the judiciary.
The claims raise questions about how police verify court orders before they act. A vacated order generally carries no legal force. Therefore, officers who rely on one could face serious scrutiny. Legal observers will likely watch how the police respond.
Sojworldnews could not independently verify Okorocha’s account. The police and the complainant have not yet commented on the claims in the material reviewed for this report. We will update this story when either side responds.
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