“Have nothing to do with a false charge and do not put an innocent or honest person to death, for I will not acquit the guilty.” – Exodus 23:7
The quest for what is today known as Enugu State by protagonists of the struggle such as the former Governor of the old Anambra State, Chief C. C Onoh (aka Ono Nwangwo) was driven by the desire by the Waawa people to free themselves from perceived political, bureaucratic, and economic stranglehold of Ndi Agbenu (the current Anambra State).
The announcement of the creation of the State on 27th August 1991 was therefore received with great joy. Men, women, and children danced a victory dance. I recall that I ran the breadth and length of Abakpa-Nike. Cannons and den guns also boomed in Nike villages. It was the birth of a new order- order of freedom, peace, and socio-economic development. Or so the people thought.
Sadly, the great hopes the State held has continued to fizzle out before our very eyes. For instance, whereas there was tap water in virtually every nook and cranny of the capital city in 1991, the pipes had since dried up and over 80 percent of Enugu city have no access to portable water.
Today, the people of Enugu are even more crest-fallen in shame and disappointment, as the Sullivan Chime’s Administration, which held great promises for socio-economic revival have gradually descended to pure dictatorship and pettiness since its second tenure. Instead of the expected extension of a commendable urban renewal effort to the villages, the State has been in the news for all the wrong reasons.
If it is not confusion over the whereabouts of the Governor, which government claimed was enjoying an “accumulated vacation” in God-knows-where, whereas he was battling for dear life, it would be controversy over the ill-advised construction of a N13 billion “ultra-modern” State Secretariat in a State where even portable water is luxury. If it is not about an alleged detention of the estranged First Lady, Clara Chime, it would be about a court scolding the government and awarding a whooping N10 million damages and N100,000 cost against government for illegally removing the former Chairman of the Enugu State Universal Education Board (Ethel Nebo-Ezeabasili) from office. If it is not about meddling in chieftaincy title conferment, it would be about illegal sack of respected traditional rulers for as much as exchanging pleasantries with purported “enemies” of government”.
Just recently, HRH Igwe Agana of Amandim-Olo was not only removed as the Chairman of Enugu West Traditional Rulers Council (where Chime and Ekweremadu come from) for associating with Ekweremadu, but also summarily dethroned for failing to surrender to the Enugu State Government a brand new bus given to him by Senator Ekweremadu sometime ago. Not even the tendering of the receipt of purchase and registration documents all in his name moved the government.
Now, the State is the butt of joke again over what has been dubbed a chicken-impeachment. It was the same chicken palaver that dominated newsstands in January this year when government agencies carted away the 3,000 birds in the Deputy Governor, Sunday Onyebuchi’s poultry, constructed by Michael Okpara, the First Premier of the Eastern Region in an area designated as Farm Unit. Yet, the Governor is running a piggery, poultry, and ranch in Farm Unit in his lodge till date.
Expectedly, the whole chicken impeachment episode has attracted nationwide opprobrium with so many commentaries, reviews, and even editorials by major national dailies wondering how a State Assembly could descend so low as to want to impeach a Deputy Governor for this and other flimsy excuses.
The nation is also miffed by the Governor’s impudence that he had given his Deputy the option of resignation, which he failed to take. “It has actually come to a point where we need to know who actually is boss because we can no longer work together”, further boasted. He forgets that Onyebuchi isn’t his appointee. Yes, he chose him as his running mate, but the people ultimately elected both of them.
For one man’s ego, members of the State Assembly, which showed no interest while the controversy over the alleged detention of Mrs. Clara Chime raged is dancing naked. It does not bother them that Enugu is the only State in southern Nigeria yet to ratify the Child Rights Act 2003 or that it passed its first Private Member Bill since 1999 only in June this year.
Anyway, I am not here to waste my time on a State Assembly populated by rubberstamps, bootlickers, and dregs of Enugu’s politics. Their haste of action and words have given them away as heavily induced people who dread even the sight of Sunday Onyebuchi than the world dreads the Ebola virus.
I would rather direct my clarion call at the 7-Man Panel on the Enugu ‘chicken impeachment’ to remind them that history beckons on them to save Enugu from further embarrassments and ruination.
Although, as I write this piece, the Panel has already put the wrong foot forward by barring the press from covering its proceedings, it can still redeem its image by reversing itself. But if it insists on its earlier decision, then it is sad, ominous, and detracts from its credibility. Democracy can only thrive on transparency. If the Nasarawa panel on Governor Al-Makura had its proceedings televised live, why on earth should the Enugu Panel conduct its business like a secret cult? Is it not those who have evil intentions that the bible says run from light?
However, I believe members of the Panel could still write their names in gold. But if they get it wrong, history would reckon that they condemned an innocent man for filthy lucre to assuage the ego of a power-drunk Governor hell-bent on gifting Enugu East Senatorial seat to one “madam at the top”. They should not forget that, although Pontius Pilate washed his hands before condemning Christ, those hands still drip with the blood of the innocent in history pages for condemning an innocent man.
Indeed, Onyebuchi has won in the court of pubic opinion. Even if justice is manipulated in the panel’s court of man, the court of God can never be manipulated. God and history will never acquit them.
Nicholas Ozor writes from Enugu
