Impeachment: Enugu Dep Gov faces removal as panel submits report

ENUGU—The impeachment panel probing allegations of wrong-doings against Enugu State Deputy Governor, Mr. Sunday Onyebuchi, yesterday, submitted its report to the Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Mr. Eugene Odo.

Chairman of the panel, Mr.  Frankln Uche Oraekeiyi, who led six other members of the panel to the Speaker’s office yesterday morning, said the report was prepared in three volumes.

According to him, Volume One is their findings; Volume Two, the proceedings; and Volume Three, their recommendations, which he did not disclose.



The speaker, however, thanked the panel members for accepting the responsibility and discharging their function within a short time.
He also thanked the State Chief Judge, Justice Innocent Umezulike, for “assembling top professionals” to carry out the investigation.

Odo promised that the House would within 14 days look into their recommendations and decide whether to adopt or reject it.

Though the panel chairman did not disclose details of their recommendations, a staff of the Assembly revealed yesterday that the deputy governor was found guilty of all allegations leveled against him.
Although this could not be confirmed officially yesterday as the Public Relations Officer of the House, Mr. Jonas Ugwuanyi, said that details of the report were yet to be disclosed, it was gathered that the panel asked the lawmakers to remove the deputy governor from office.

Enugu Group and text messages
A pressure group in Enugu State, Save Enugu Group had last Friday sent text messages informing the public that the panel had returned a “guilty verdict” against the deputy governor, claiming it had it on good authority that the panel asked the State Assembly to impeach Mr. Onyebuchi.

State chairman of All Progressives Congress, APC, Dr Ben Nwoye, at the weekend, condemned what it called desperate moves by the state governor, Sullivan Chime, to impeach his deputy.
Nwoye said that if considerable amount of effort and resources being invested in the “dictatorial” gamble were invested in the provision of amenities, the people would have been better for it.

Nwoye, who spoke during the inauguration of Enugu East Local  Government secretariat of APC, at Abakpa Nike, Enugu, urged residents of the state to resist any attack on democracy, even as he vowed that his party would take over Enugu State in 2015.

He described the opening of the office as the biggest event of the party in the state this year, adding that it marked a movement that would culminate in the defeat of the ruling party next year.
APC

“This is the beginning of that movement I told you about in April of  this year, where we will march one by one, men and women, boys and girls from every polling unit, from every ward and we join hands, and together we champion true democracy in Enugu State.

“Mark it, today is like no other day because today, all those that have spoken and said there is no APC in Enugu State, will wake up to the true reality of our own time; that APC has come to stay and that one by one they are going to come in and join you because they have seen the truth from the falsehood.
We know that today, while APC governors are planning and providing free education, free healthcare, better roads, industrialization; PDP government in Enugu State is involved in chicken impeachment,” he said.

Vice-Chairman of APC, South-East zone, Chief Emma Eneukwu, in his  remarks, described APC as a destiny child that will take over leadership of the country in 2015, noting that PDP was already afraid that, indeed, a credible and better alternative had emerged on the block.

He said that for 15 years, PDP has been talking about second Niger Bridge and Enugu international airport, saying since 2004, the PDP-led Federal Government had allegedly provided funds in every year’s budget which they could not account for, even as he said that the Bridge was being done as a concession which the people will still pay for through a toll-gate.

“Igbos will still pay for the bridge; there is nothing concrete in Igboland courtesy of PDP. All the federal highways are in shambles, and, of course, they have never completed any project; the Enugu-Onitsha Expressway awarded since 2000 is still uncompleted, so also the Enugu Port-Harcourt Expressway.”

He said PDP had failed the nation, adding that was why they are resorting to blackmail by calling APC Boko Haram and Islamic party, but said that on the contrary, it was PDP that must have been behind the insurgency, hence all the states under attack were APC states and  that PDP had declared emergency in those states in order to facilitate easy rigging of elections in those states.

“The real people that created Boko Haram know themselves, that is why they created state of emergency in the APC states to use it to rig  election,” Eneukwu said.

He charged members to work hard because, according to him, it’s only  through hard work and truth that they will be able to defeat the  incumbent government.

PDP chieftain faults impeachment
Former National Auditor of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Mr. Ray Nnaji, yesterday, decried recent developments in Enugu State chapter of the party, saying the ongoing impeachment proceedings against the Deputy Governor, Mr. Sunday Onyebuchi, was not discussed by the party.

He warned that the impeachment plot which he alleged was planned by certain persons in the leadership of the party in the state, could boomerang if it succeeded as it was capable of creating crisis that would work against the interest of the party in the coming elections.

He accused the Vita Abba-led state PDP executive of allowing itself to be used to destabilize the party by “becoming a rubber stamp in the hands of Governor Sullivan Chime.”
Nnaji vowed to return to court to reopen the pending case over who was the authentic chairman of the party in the state.

Nnaji, a legal practitioner and PDP chieftain, told journalists that rather than submit to the tenets of the party, certain officials who were not part of the formation had carried on as if they were above the party.
Nnaji recalled how he emerged state chairman of the party after its congress in 2008, and how the faction loyal to Chime conducted a parallel congress where Abba emerged and the suit he filed over the development, and vowed to reopen the matter to ease out the incumbent leadership which, he said, was part of the problems of the party.

He said: “I had to concede my position as PDP chairman to Vita Abba on certain conditions which have not been met and I am now going back to reclaim that position so that the correct thing can be done.”

Vanguard