“Truth never damages a cause that is just.” ― Mahatma Gandhi
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.
He is unhappy that the pathologist did not give out samples of his father’s body parts after the autopsy. However, that 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 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 CREDIBILITY OF THE AUTOPSY PROCESS
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.
None of those present during the autopsy has queried how the autopsy was done to this very day.
DUMO’S PROTEST: PERSONAL, NOT ENDORSED BY HIS REPRESENTATIVE PATHOLOGISTS
On Friday 19th July 2019, the very day that the autopsy was done, Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs’ lawyers wrote a letter of protest to CP Maame Yaa Tiwaa Addo-Danquah, Director General of the Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghanaian Police. This is noteworthy because not a single query was raised by any of his representative pathologists during or after the autopsy. Furthermore, having worked so hard to instigate the autopsy, Chief Dumo chose not to be part of a pre-autopsy meeting that held at the 37 Military Hospital. Instead, he nominated his elder brother, Senibo, to attend for his side of the family. Why? We can only conclude that having lost control of the autopsy process, he also lost interest and wanted no part of the High Court-ordered autopsy involving representatives of Dr. Mrs. Seinye O. B. Lulu-Briggs. Hence, his letter of protest even before the conclusion of the autopsy was aimed at rocking the boat.
As a result of Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs’ letter of protest, CP Maame Yaa T iwaa Addo-Danquah, Director General of Ghana’s Criminal Investigations Department, convened a conference of all parties at the 37 Military Hospital on Monday 22nd July 2019, the very next working day after the autopsy was conducted. Brigadier General Ernest C. Saka, the Director General of Ghana’s Armed Forces Medical Service, chaired the meeting, in the company of three Colonels of the Ghanaian Army. Other attendees included; Col. (Dr.) Seth Attoh who conducted the autopsy, Representatives of Nigeria’s IGP, one pathologist representing Dumo and his brothers, one pathologist representing Dr. (Mrs.) Seinye O. B. Lulu-Briggs and her other children, Mrs O. B. Lulu-Briggs and her lawyers, Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs and his lawyers, and AIG Akhiwu Wilson (Head of Medical Pathology, Nigerian Police).
During the meeting, Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs registered his displeasure about his non-receipt of samples of his father’s body parts after the autopsy. Col. (Dr.) Attoh who presided over the autopsy informed him that it was unknown in the practice of pathology to distribute samples of body parts after an autopsy. Nevertheless, his request was accommodated, and he was asked if he was prepared to receive the samples of the body parts at that material time. He declined saying he would rather obtain samples via another autopsy, which he demanded. The Ghanaian military chiefs present at the meeting could not hide their astonishment and disgust at his request for a second autopsy.
The meeting rose with the conclusion by all parties’ present, including Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs’ representative pathologists that the autopsy procedure was done correctly and according to the terms of the coroners’ instructions. Dumo’s personal grouse that he was not given samples of his father’s body parts is a convenient excuse to mask his real motives. If as agreed, especially by his pathologists, that the autopsy was properly done, why did Chief Dumo decline the offer to be given samples of his father’s body tissue? Why is he insisting on a second autopsy? What does Dumo need samples of his father’s body parts taken at a second autopsy for?
After the meeting the Ghanaian Police, which Dumo claimed was shut out of the autopsy procedure, formally responded to his letter of protest on 7th August 2019. They stated clearly that “The Autopsy was done according to the standard practice…” [See letter attached].
DUMO SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR DELAY IN BURYING HIGH CHIEF O. B. LULU-BRIGGS
The claim by Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs that his stepmother is holding the mortal remains of his father hostage and therefore delaying his funeral is completely false and misleading. On the contrary, the mortal remains of High Chief are ready for interment except that Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs is not yet ready to bury his father and is purposely delaying the funeral.
Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs has, among many things, said his stepmother’s pending litigations are delaying the burial of his father. We responded to this particular excuse through a statement titled, The Needless Delay of High Chief O. B. Lulu- Briggs’ Funeral, Dumo’s 13 Frivolous Lawsuits Against Stepmother, which showed clearly how Dumo, not his stepmother, has instituted a plethora of lawsuits aimed at delaying his father’s funeral. It is noteworthy that our conclusion that the lawsuits do not stop the burial of his father is apt and true.
No litigation is subsisting anywhere in the world that inhibits, prohibits or forbids the burial of High Chief O. B. Lulu-Briggs. The delay in the burial of High Chief O. B. Lulu-Briggs must be attributed to Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs’ mischievous claim that his 88-year-old father died unnaturally. This resulted in his call for an autopsy, which has been done and attested to by his very pathologists. Incredulously, he has returned to the same Kaneshie District Magistrate Court, which ordered the first autopsy with a request for another autopsy to further delay his father’s burial. On the 6th September 2019 the same Magistrate, Mrs E. K. Barnes-Botchway, granted his second request and issued an order for an inquest to be carried out. This order has since been appealed against. Dumo has gleefully flaunted this information in the media.
Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs is delaying his father’s burial in order to use his father body as a bargaining chip with his stepmother to gain access to his father’s assets. His father’s Last Will and Testament clearly states that his three elder sons had received their inheritance from him during his lifetime.
After the meeting with his pastor and stepmother failed to yield the results Dumo expected, he amended his request and demanded that his stepmother give him 50% of Moni Pulo Limited. She stated that she would gift 50% of her shares in the company to all of her husband’s children and not just to him alone. Dumo declined.
His most recent proposal to his stepmother about how to divide up his father’s estate is scandalous and will shock even the most rigid delinquent. If Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs is truly proud of its content and is convinced that he has a rightful claim to all that he seeks for himself, he should be bold enough to make it as public as he makes the false and malicious claims against his stepmother.
WHAT IS DUMO’S ULTIMATE AGENDA?
In the meantime, is it not proper to probe if Dumo’s dispute with the autopsy conducted on his father’s earthly remains and 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?
- MRS. SEINYE LULU BRIGGS’ APPEAL
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.
Oraye St. Franklyn Esq. Spokesman, Dr. (Mrs) Seinye O. B. Lulu-Briggs
