Judge bars journalists from court

An Enugu High Court judge, Justice Eno Oluedo, on Thursday released the identity cards of two journalists, which she confiscated on Tuesday.
Oluedo also barred the journalists from her court, saying they should obtain a written permission from the chief registrar of the court if they wished to cover her court.
The release of the cards followed a petition by the News Agency of Nigeria journalists to the Chief Judge of the state, Justice Innocent Umezulike, and the Chief Registrar of the court, Dennis Eko.
The journalists had asked the two officials to intervene in the matter as they did not contravene any of the court’s rules to warrant a seizure of their identity cards.
They were in the court to cover a case involving one Ikechukwu Okoronkwo, a former boxer, who has been in prison custody since July 25, 2011 on the orders of the judge.
The boxer was, however, granted bail by the Court of Appeal in Enugu on November 20, 2013, following the court’s assumption of jurisdiction in the bail application.
The appellate court had ruled that the trial judge denied herself jurisdiction in a case she was competent to dispose.
The former boxer was unable to meet the bail conditions and had applied to the appellate court for their variation.