The Eastern Bar Forum has denied receiving ₦40 million from the Government of Imo State as support for its Second Quarterly Meeting held in Owerri in July 2026, saying the only sum it received was ₦9 million.
The Forum’s Governing Council issued the denial in a press statement dated 5th September, 2026, from its address care of Damian O. Nosike & Co. (Chidindo Chambers), 59 (Old 63B) Njiribeako Street, Owerri, under the title “Eastern Bar Forum Sets Record Straight On Alleged ₦40 Million Support From Imo State Government.”
The statement says the Council was compelled to respond to what it called a baseless and misleading allegation emanating from one Anthony Ibe of the Nigerian Bar Association, Owerri Branch, to the effect that the Forum was given ₦40 million by the Imo State Government as financial support for the July meeting.
“For the avoidance of doubt, and in the interest of transparency, we state the facts as they are,” the Forum said.
According to the statement, the Government of Imo State, through the Honourable Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, paid ₦9 million into the Eastern Bar Forum’s Zenith Bank account at about 12:45 p.m. on Friday, 10 July 2026.
The Forum states that at the time of the payment there was a commitment that further support would be provided later that day, but that the additional support was never received.
The statement links the withdrawal of the anticipated additional support to the crisis involving the Executive, the Bench and a section of the Bar in Imo State.
“The Eastern Bar Forum was fully aware of the circumstances surrounding the crisis but deliberately chose not to be drawn into it,” it said. “The Forum neither took sides nor allowed itself to become a participant in an internal dispute that was not its making.”
Despite the withdrawal, the Forum says it did not make an issue of the shortfall.
By a letter dated 30 July 2026, jointly signed by the Governor and Chairman of the Governing Council, D. O. Nosike, Esq., and the Secretary, Samuel Akpadiagha Etuk, Esq., the Forum formally acknowledged receipt of the ₦9 million and expressed appreciation to the Governor of Imo State for the support extended.
The Council characterised the allegation as deliberate.
“It therefore smacks of mischief and appears to be a calculated attempt to embarrass the Eastern Bar Forum to insinuate that the Forum received ₦40 million from the Government of Imo State as support for its quarterly meeting,” the statement said.
It went further on the question of approval as distinct from receipt.
“For the avoidance of any doubt, if indeed ₦40 million was approved by the Governor of Imo State for the Eastern Bar Forum, we state without equivocation that the Forum never received such money and it is not within our knowledge that any such sum was paid to the Forum.”
The Forum said the only amount it received from the Government of Imo State in connection with the meeting was ₦9 million, and that the receipt was duly acknowledged. It described it as deeply concerning that a matter capable of verification from its financial records was being subjected to speculation and distortion.
“Our position is simple: we received ₦9 million, and not ₦40 million. Any contrary claim should be tested against the records of the Forum,” it said, adding: “The records speak for themselves.”
The statement was issued on behalf of the members of the Governing Council: Damian Nosike, Chairman and Governor; Willis U. O. Essien, Vice Chairman and Deputy Governor; Samuel Akpadiagha Etuk, Esq., Secretary; Ibekwe Jovita N., Assistant Secretary; Emmanuel Nnaemeka Nwambam, Treasurer; Felix Suku, Financial Secretary; Ejiofor Chidozie L., Welfare Secretary; Peter Ayogu, PhD, Publicity Secretary; and Oko Ebe Uche, Legal Adviser.
The denial is precise in a way that is worth reading carefully, because it answers one question fully and leaves an adjacent one open.
On receipt, the Forum is unambiguous and has put itself on the record with a bank, a date, a time and a figure. That is a checkable claim, and a body that invites its accusers to test an allegation against its records is not usually bluffing.
On approval, the statement is deliberately conditional: if ₦40 million was approved, the Forum says it never got it and knows nothing about any such payment. That formulation does not deny that a larger sum may have been approved somewhere in the Imo State Government. It denies that the Forum received it. If an approval for ₦40 million exists, then the question of what became of the balance is a question for the State Government and its Ministry of Justice, not for the Forum, and it is a materially different and more serious question than the one the Forum has been asked to answer.
The second point of interest is the reason given for the withdrawal. The Forum says the promised balance evaporated against the backdrop of the crisis between the Executive, the Bench and a section of the Bar in Imo State, and that it declined to take sides. Read plainly, that is an account of support being extended and then withheld while a professional body kept its distance from a dispute involving the state’s judiciary. Whatever the arithmetic turns out to be, that is the part of the statement the Bar should sit with.
Which leads to the question neither party has raised. The dispute here is about how much a state government gave a lawyers’ forum, not about whether it should have. A Bar body that receives funding from an Executive it may later have to confront, particularly one in open conflict with its own Bench, carries a perception problem that no amount of accurate accounting resolves. The Forum’s decision to stay out of the Imo crisis is to its credit. The cleaner position would have been not to be in a situation where its neutrality had to be asserted at all.
