William Shakespeare had since suggested in Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, Scene 2 that: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” What is not clear, however, is whether lawyers are also meant to kill one another. And that is part of the confusion Akwa Ibom State Bar is grappling with as a 36-year-old lawyer, Abasiesebanga Ikoiwak has been fingered in the murder of her husband who is also a lawyer.
Already, an Uyo High Court has resumed hearing the trial Abasiesebanga Ikoiwak and five others, over the grisly murder of her 41-year-old husband, Barrister Godwin Ikoiwak, a native of Eket Local Government Area, and a State Counsel at the State Ministry of Justice
During the last hearing, a prosecution witness who is a friend and classmate of the deceased at the Faculty of Law, University of Calabar, Barrister Sunny Anyanwu said the deceased told him in a phone conversation a few days before his death that he and his wife, Abasiesebanga were having problems over infidelity.
Anyanwu said the deceased told him that he reported the matter to his wife’s family who invited him to a meeting in their family compound in Nung Udoe Itak, Ikono Local Government Area of the state, but he did not return home alive.
Barr. Anyanwu who is the 7th prosecution witness in the matter, also revealed that the late Barrister Godwin Ikoiwak told him that his wife, Barrister Abasiesebanga Ikoiwak was having sexual relations with her former boss and a legal practitioner, Barrister C.I. Odoh.
He said the deceased also told him that his wife had stayed with a Catholic priest, Rev. Father Maurice Mbeke as a house help and that the Catholic priest impregnated her. The pregnancy resulted in a now 19 years old young man named after his maternal grandfather.
According to the prosecution witness, the late Barrister Ikoiwak did not know that the boy who had been living with him in his house for years, was his wife’s own, because the wife said the child was her younger brother.
Moreover, he told the court that according to the deceased each time his wife said she was pregnant, he does not set his eyes on her, until after the delivery of the baby, when she will present it to him and say “this is your child”.
The prosecution team led by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Akwa Ibom State, Barr. Joseph Umoren tendered the audio recordings which was played in the open court.
