Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs, Chairman of Platform Petroleum and the second son of High Chief O. B. Lulu-Briggs has loudly disapproved of the High Court-ordered autopsy done on his father at the 37 Military Hospital, Accra, Ghana on Friday 19th July 2019.
Reacting to a letter of protest by Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs’ lawyers to CP Maame Yaa Tiwaa Addo-Danquah, Director General of the Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghanaian Police, the stepmother’s lawyer alleged that Dumo is unhappy that the pathologist did not give out samples of his father’s body parts after the autopsy.
However, in the reaction, it was stated that it is a convenient excuse because a week earlier, on 12th July 2019, he had failed to obtain custody of his father’s body to have the same autopsy performed on his own terms, without the involvement and representation of his stepmother and four of his six siblings.
The statement reads in part:
“The need for an autopsy on the remains of the revered octogenarian was deviously instigated by the 10th April 2019 petition, which Dumo’s lawyers made to Nigeria’s Inspector General of Police (IGP) on his behalf and with the support of two of his brothers, Senibo and Sofiri.
“The petition falsely claims that his stepmother murdered his father in broad daylight on an 80-minute flight from Port Harcourt to Accra, Ghana on board a full flight of 15 passengers and crew!
“At a meeting with her and his pastor in March 2019, three months after his father’s passing, Dumo had threatened to accuse her of murdering his father because she refused to accede to his demand for what he considered his father’s choice assets (Moni Pulo Limited, O.B. Lulu-Briggs Foundation, Rachael Hotel and his Port Harcourt residence). Since then he has unleashed a vicious attack on her.
“Chief Dumo had arranged for his father’s autopsy to be carried out on the 12th of July 2019 via an ex parte order, which he secured from the Kaneshie District Magistrate Court in Accra, Ghana.
“Strangely, on the appointed day, perhaps due to the rush to clandestinely secure the order, it was riddled with errors and had to be amended by the Magistrate, Mrs E.K. Barnes-Botchway, three times resulting in the postponement of the autopsy to the following Monday. Apparently, Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs personally facilitated the amendments.
“By the grace of God Almighty, Dr. Mrs. Seinye Lulu-Briggs got wind of the secret moves and on the same day she instructed her lawyers to approach the High Court of Ghana asking it to set aside the Magistrate Court order. She did not go to court to stop the autopsy as is being widely alleged by Dumo and his acolytes. Rather, she went to court to ensure the autopsy procedure was proper and fair to all parties involved.
“The following Monday, a meeting of all stakeholders was convened by the Ghanaian Police Criminal Investigations Department. All the stakeholders agreed on the process and terms of the autopsy at the meeting. In the course of the week the same terms were incorporated into a High Court order, which governed the 19th July 2019 autopsy.
“The autopsy was duly carried out at the 37 Military Hospital Accra, Ghana. Col. (Dr.) Seth Attoh, Head of Pathology Division at the 37 Military Hospital, conducted it, with the assistance of Dr. Lawrence Edusie, a Specialist Pathologist at the hospital.
“Dr. (Mrs.) Seinye Lulu-Briggs was represented at the autopsy by two Pathologists: Prof. Adetola Daramola, a Consultant Pathologist at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, who is also a Professor of Anatomic Pathology at the College of Medicine of the University of Lagos and Dr. Emeka Nwafor, a Senior Consultant Pathologist at the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital who is also a Senior Lecturer at the University of Uyo.
“Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs was represented by Dr. Francis Adedayo Faduyile, the current President of the Nigerian Medical Association and Professor Agyeman Akosa, a renowned Ghanaian pathologist.
“Other observers at the autopsy included ACP Adaku Uche-Anya and ASP Justus Ogar, both of whom were formally introduced to the Ghanaian Police as representatives of Nigeria’s IGP”.
The statement further read that None of those present during the autopsy has queried how the autopsy was done to this very day.
The lawyer called for the probe if Dumo’s dispute with the autopsy conducted on his father’s earthly remains.
“His insistence and persistence on a second autopsy are not smokescreens intended to mislead the public while he makes further attempts to bring his stepmother to negotiate with him? Or is Dumo frantically scheming and searching for how to pin his father’s natural death on his stepmother through another devious plot, which requires him to have a ‘private’ autopsy of his own that he can manipulate? Or could it be nothing more than a further delay tactic meant to frustrate the burial of his father for reasons that will soon be made public?
“Despite attempts by Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs to indict Dr. Mrs. Seinye O. B. Lulu-Briggs for the death of her husband, she continues to appeal for a date to be fixed for the interment of her husband, their patriarch, by both Chief Dumo and the Chiefs of Oruwari Briggs House of Abonnema. She continues to give assurances that High Chief O. B. Lulu-Briggs’ earthly remains are ready for burial. Dumo’s delay tactics and claims of her taking her husband’s body hostage are at best a misleading vilification of her person to promote mischief and achieve a completely selfish and wicked agenda which will not succeed by God’s grace”. Nigeria News
