Group faults moves to impeach Enugu deputy governor

A group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has warned against the plot to impeach the deputy governor of Enugu State, Sunday Onyebuchi, describing it as a “ruse.” It said if the decision of the seven-member impeachment panel be adopted and the Enugu State House of Assembly proceeds to unseat the deputy governor the action would amount to the greatest disservice to the Nigerian constitution. HURIWA said unseating the deputy governor would rubbish the impeachment clause inserted in the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of 1999 (as amended) and that this would create the impression in the global community that Nigeria had become a ‘chicken republic’ where anything goes. Mr. Onyebuchi is facing impeachment for allegedly operating a commercial poultry at his official residence. He was also alleged to have disobeyed Governor Sullivan Chime on several occasions. In a statement by its
National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director, Zainab Yusuf, HURIWA, argued that there is nowhere in the Nigerian constitution that says the rearing of chickens within the precincts of Government House constitutes an impeachable offence. It stated further that “the comprehensive response offered Mr. Onyebuchi had “rationally exposed the dare – devil political undercurrents surrounding the sinister plot to unseat the deputy governor just so as to satisfy the whims and caprices of the little ‘political god’ of Enugu state and his hatchet plotters who are bent on foisting their choice candidates for all available political positions in the coming 2015 general elections.” The group asked the national secretariat of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) and leading political stakeholders in the South East to intervene to put a stop to the ongoing charade in the Enugu state House of Assembly to save the South East from the opprobrium that the illegal impeachment process has attracted from across the globe. “We condemn this attempt by the Enugu state House of Assembly to rubbish the provisions of the constitution of Nigeria in their hasty but thoughtless attempts to satisfy their pay master by removing the Deputy Governor who in the last seven years has served that state meritoriously even in the periods of ‘mysterious absence’ of the state chief executive who often travelled for ‘medical’ reasons,” HURIWA said. “We urge the Enugu state House of Assembly to have a rethink so as to save the South East from the disgrace that it is trying to foist on the zone through this corrupt impeachment proceeding. A word is enough for the wise. “There is nowhere in the whole wide World that tending of live animals or birds constitute an offence. Indeed it does not make sense that a state government battling with the high level of unemployment among the youth could be seen fighting a state official that has shown exemplary character of embracing self-employment modul