A MUST READ: Enugu Chicken Impeachment

I give you this write up by Okwudili Edeh from Enugu:

'Recent media reports quoted the Enugu Rescue Group, as describing the ongoing impeachment saga as messy, ridiculous, and a festival of shame and raw power. What an apt way to capture another a messy dent on the nation’s democracy. It is probably second only to the November 2, 2006 impeachment of former Governor Peter Obi in an Asaba hotel.

Anybody who has read the charges against the Deputy Governor, Sunday Onyebuchi and his reply would easily deduce that impeachment scenario is like the story of the lion, whom 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 State 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 state government since January.

It doesn’t even matter that Onyebuchi provided video evidence, in addition to media reports showing that he attended the said event he was said to have failed to represent the governor.

It doesn’t bother them that Nigerians know that the whole chicken impeachment boils down to Sunday Onyebuchifs interest in the Enugu East Senatorial seat.

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, he doesn’t even qualify for a spare tyre. Spare tyres are usually accommodated in the boot or elsewhere in the vehicle, but Onyebuchi has never been part of the vehicle called 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.

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.

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.'