19th November, 2010
Nollywood actress, Ufuoma Ejenabor, is not strange to drama. But this rising actress may not be enjoying the kind of drama entrailing her alleged assault by the convoy of Lagos State House of Assembly Speaker, Adeyemi Ikuforiji.
Days after the reports over the alleged assault on her along Ozumba Mbadiwe Street, Victoria Island was broken by the actress herself through a Twitter message, things began to turn the other way with the recent release of a video recording of what actually transpired between the actress and the Speaker on that day.
Ufuoma had claimed publicly on 7 November that she was assaulted on 29 October by policemen attached to the convoy of the Lagos Speaker. She said she recorded the incident where the driver of one of the vehicles, the Pilot, hit her Nissan Xterra SUV and drove on without regarding the act.
“I tried to call their attention to it but they were abusive. Then they got really angry because I was recording the event. They had my BlackBerry phone which they still have till date. We wrote to the Speaker and no response. But we are taking it to court. One week is long enough,†she stated.
But in a letter dated 2 November and written to the Speaker by Obinna Ukawoko, her lawyer, Ufuoma demanded N35 million as compensation. She claimed to have been assaulted and her vehicle damaged. The actress also claimed she had on her, accessories worth N2.5 million that were allegedly stolen and destroyed by members of Ikuforiji’s convoy. She listed the items thus: white gold necklace (N850,000), silver Gucci wrist watch (N475,000), pink Ipod (N55,000), Blackberry Bold (N150,000) and Channel sunglasses ($1,215). She also claimed her wedding band worth £3,000 was broken, while her damaged vehicle will be repaired for N595,000.
But the Lagos State House of Assembly on Monday, at a media briefing, contested all the claims of the actress, saying it will take a legal action against the her.
Segun Olusesi, the Chief of Staff of the Assembly, said the House will make the issue a deterrent case. Olusesi, who claimed to be driving directly behind the Pilot vehicle said Ufoma drove into the convoy, hit the left rear of the vehicle’s bumper with the right front bumper of her car.
The video evidence, he said, showed the actress as she drove her car away from the police station without any visible damage and had with her, her wedding band and bag while she was at the station.
A source that has been following the saga told Showbiz Trends that “if things turned out true as the Speaker’s camp want us to believe, then it will be a case of deceit and cheap lie on the part of the rising actress. Besides, the accessories she said she had on that day was too good to be true, especially during this period that her sector, Nollywood is supposed to be in recession.â€
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