Still on Enugu’s messy, chicken impeachment

Anybody who has read the frivolous charges against Deputy Governor Sunday Onyebuchi and his reply would easily deduce that impeachment scenario is like the story of the lion, which, hell-bent on having an innocent lamb for lunch, accused him of messing up the stream he was drinking from. Not even the plea by the hapless […]

Anybody who has read the frivolous charges against Deputy Governor Sunday Onyebuchi and his reply would easily deduce that impeachment scenario is like the story of the lion, which, hell-bent on having an innocent lamb for lunch, accused him of messing up the stream he was drinking from. Not even the plea by the hapless lamb that he was the one downstream while the lion was drinking upstream could pacify the bloodthirsty beast. The evil deity that bays for human blood will never be pacified with a bull’s blood or fresh palm oil. As the Athenians told the Melos, “The strong do as they can and the weak suffer what they must.”
To the Enugu State House of Assembly, it doesn’t matter that Governor Chime did not come to equity with clean hands (since the deputy made it clear in his reply that the governor owns a larger poultry within the same Government House). Media reports also show that Chime owns both piggery and cattle ranch there. It doesn’t matter that the poultry farms (both the governor’s and the deputy’s) were constructed by the Michael Okpara’s administration when it was building the expansive Government House. It doesn’t matter that all previous deputy governors had operated the poultry, and that Onyebuchi has operated it since 2007/2008. It doesn’t matter that the poultry had since been shut down and the 3,000 birds carted away at the behest of the governor since January this year. It doesn’t even matter that Onyebuchi provided video evidence, in addition to media reports showing that he attended the said event.
It doesn’t bother them that Nigerians know that the whole chicken impeachment boils down to Sunday Onyebuchi’s interest in the Enugu East senatorial seat, which Chime reserved for his chief of staff, Mrs. Ifeoma Nwobodo. Chime wants to force his sister (Ifeoma is from Udi, but married to Enugu East) down the throat of Nkanu people, and then snatch the Enugu West seat from Senator Ike Ekweremadu so that both of them can end up in the Senate. Her ambition is welcome, but Nkanuland is peeved by the brutish approach.
Rumours are also rife in Enugu political circles that the governor is embarking on another protracted medical trip and is hell-bent on installing another deputy that can “protect” his interest.
However, is Onyebuchi the real loser? Impeached or not, he has never been a deputy governor in the real sense of it. A quiet and humble man to a fault, systematically impoverished and politically castrated by Chime, he doesn’t even qualify for a “spare tyre.” Spare tyres are usually accommodated in the boot or elsewhere in the vehicle, but Sunday Onyebuchi has never been part of the vehicle called the Chime administration.
From Onyebuchi’s reply to the State Assembly, not only does the governor fail to hand over to him whenever he (Chime) is away, including his four-month medical trip, junior appointees of the governor commandeer him about at their pleasure.
Sunday Onyebuchi did not hide his powerlessness during the carting away of his livelihood in January at the behest of “Madam at the Top.” He told reporters: “As I am talking to you, the whereabouts of the over 3,000 birds confiscated from the poultry farm is not known to me. I am presenting the matter to God because the person behind it is so powerful that my challenging her will be like using a vehicle to collide with a moving train. It is unfortunate that the person who is behind this answers a deaconess in a church I have respect for. So let God be the judge and guide me on how to absorb the shock and humiliation because I believe it is intended to humiliate me.”
Onyebuchi’s reply further shows that he has been operating from his private residence since 2012 without any allowance in lieu. He was asked to move out of the deputy governor’s lodge for renovation works, but only for the work to be suspended ever since. While the emperor governor’s lodge was completed almost immediately, Onyebuchi’s lodge lies fallow, dirty, and weedy.
So what does he really have to lose? Is it power or influence that was never there? Economic empowerment? Respect that he was never accorded or what?
Indeed, the real loser, the governor has, by this additional act of impunity, left no one in doubt that he is the real troublemaker in the state. With two consecutively estranged wives, the quarrel with his godfather, Chimaroke Nnamani, quarrel with Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo, political feud with the Deputy Senate President, who played a major role in securing him a second term ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), reckless sack of traditional rulers for as much as greeting his perceived political opponents, etc, people are wont to say, “What manner of man is this?”
Then come the Enugu State House of Assembly. The perpetually docile and rubberstamp Assembly, which passed its first Private Member Bill since 1999 just last June, has further demonstrated its emptiness by the ongoing lousiness.
What about the Sen. Ken Nnamanis of this world who claim they are paragons of democracy? Numerous media reports on the Enugu stakeholders meeting quoted him as insisting that the deputy governor should resign or be impeached since the governor could not work with him anymore. Interestingly, the same person, in 2005 had berated the House of Reps for threatening to impeach former President Olusegun Obasanjo for unilaterally altering/doctoring the 2005 Appropriation Act. He said then: “The word impeachment is a very serious one. It’s like saying that somebody is going to die – death sentence. I don’t think people should use the word impeachment randomly because it’s the final alternative. I don’t think we have got to that stage yet.” See Vanguard, May 25, 2005.
Today, between a president who singlehandedly altered an appropriation law and a deputy governor who reared chicken or allegedly failed to represent his “boss”, who actually committed an impeachable offence?
Edeh wrote from Enugu.