Ken Nnamani And The So Called Impeachment

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By Nicholas Ozor
 
Like the blood of the innocent, the injustice meted out to the ex-Deputy Governor of Enugu State, Mr. Sunday Onyebuchi has continued to generate international opprobrium and take tolls on his political executors, with the latest being the former Senate President, Senator Ken Nnamani.
In one fell swoop, a man who had gained undue respect on false democratic credentials and DNA for donkey years crashed from a false Olympian height, baring an ugly, crass political hypocrisy and irresponsibility by telling the world that Onyebuchi ?brought the woe on himself?.
In a Vanguard newspapers interview of August 22, 2014, Ken Nnamani, who had since been reported in the media as the real undertaker in the Enugu messy, chicken impeachment said: ?Those who advised him (Onyebuchi) to fight on are the ones he should hold responsible for his impeachment because he had the opportunity of resigning because that was the better option, but some people encouraged him to go on and gave him lawyers.  If he has now been impeached it is unfortunate, that is what he brought on himself?. He was being unreasonably stubborn?. It is a lesson on stubbornness.? Hmmmm.
It could be recalled that the online media alleged at the outset of the impeachment that Nnamanai told Enugu PDP stakeholders that as far as he was concerned, a Deputy Governor was a political appointee of the Governor, Onyebuchi must resign or be impeached since the Governor did not want him again. Thus, him, there is nothing like joint mandate.
More ugly was that Nnamani was sadly reechoing the alpha and omega stance of Governor Sullivan Chime, the man currently buttering his bread. Chime arrogantly told the press at the onset: ?I gave him the option to resign. It has actually come to a point where we need to know who actually is boss because we can no longer work together?.
It is a real shame that as far as narrow political interests and patronages of Nnamani are intact, rule of law, common sense, justice, truth, equity and good conscience could go to hell. It did not matter to him that resolutions of a parliament, such as the House claimed it passed on rearing of chickens in residential areas did carry the force of law; and that Chime was not coming to equity with clean hands. It was proved beyond doubts during the impeachment trial that apart from owning a bigger poultry in the area designated as ?Farm Unit? as obtainable in the Deputy Governor?s section, Chime also ran a piggery, and ranch. He cleared it in them in the tail end of the impeachment trial. The Chief Physician of Enugu Government House also testified during cross examination that he had treated persons attacked and wounded by the aggressive ostriches and a brown monkey Chime keeps in the Governor?s Lodge.
It did not matter to Ken Nnamani that the 2011 to 2014 State Budgets made available by Onyebuchi to the kangaroo panel show that the same House of Assembly, which claimed that chicken rearing in the Government House was an anathema, has been passing provisions for maintenance of poultry in the Government House. The only difference was that while Chime used state resources to run his animal farms, without making returns to the State, Sunday Onyebuchi did not touch/was denied budgeted funds.
It did not further matter to Ken Nnamani that video evidence and media reports showed thatSunday Onyebuchi was at the 2nd Niger Bridge event or that there was no manifest or personal communication by the emperor Governor directing his deputy on the meeting, the agenda and the position of the state on the issues at stake.
Instructively, the same Nnamani berated the House of Representatives in 2005 for suggesting the impeachment of former President Olusegun Obasanjo for unilaterally altering the 2005 Appropriation Act. He declared in Vanguard Newspaper, May 23, 2005: ?the word impeachment is a very serious one. It?s like saying that somebody is going to die, death sentence. We are careful how we use the word impeachment. We 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.?
As an Enugu group rightly wondered, ?who, between a President who unilaterally altered an Act of the National Assembly and a Deputy Governor who allegedly failed to represent his Governor or allegedly reared a poultry, actually committed an impeachable offence?. Nnamani have a conscience?
However, it is not the first time Nnamani would be speaking from both sides of the mouth. As Senate President, Nnamani had always cited high turnover in the legislature as an enemy of democracy in Nigeria and Africa. Today, he has taken over the role of the chief enforcer of the Governor Chime?s decree that Enugu federal lawmakers who are in their second terms should retire from NASS to enable Chime and people like his Chief of Staff, Ifeoma Nwobodo to graduate to the National Assembly. So, what has happened to those examples Nnamani cited of long-serving US congressmen? Gone with political convenience? How does the agenda by Chime to singlehandedly expropriate the right and power of Enugu PDP and people to chose their leaders fit into the milieu?
Roll back to 2011. For a dangle of a Vice Presidential ticket by IBB and the northern elements, Nnamani the ?democrat? rode gleefully with IBB at Eagles Square during the launch of IBB?s presidential campaign in 2011. It did not matter to him again that IBB annulled the freest and fairest election in Nigeria. In fact, the Daily Trust newspaper of October 25, 2006 carried a banner headline titled ?Nnamani- Jonathan Won?t Respect the Constitution?. Nnamani during a courtesy visit by the IBB Campaign Organisation to late Governor Patrick Yakowa, lampooned President Jonathan over PDP zoning, insisting he was out to defend ?the sanctity of the party?s constitution?. According to him, a President who would not obey the party?s constitution would certainly not obey the country?s constitution.
However, typical of him, once the North lost the primaries to Jonathan, Nnamani ran after the same man he said was not fit to be President. He even fired a hot parting shot at his former allies. Vanguard newspaper of February 17, 2011 carried a headline entitled ?Back Jonathan or Quit PDP, Nnamani tells Ciroma, others?. As children, we used to sing ?aeroplane turner, turn, turn turner?.
In all, I think a man should stand for something beyond immediate personal gains. This is exactly what Sunday Onyebuchi and those Nnamani claimed provided Onyebuchi with team of lawyers did for democracy and justice. Today, the world knows that not all ?democrats? practice what they preach. Nigerian know that Onyebuchi was impeached, not because making an honest living out of running poultry is worse than running a mental home in the Enugu Government House, but because ?a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and subverts the cause of the just? (Exodus 23: 8). This is something to be ashamed of, and not boast about.
Ozor writes from Enugu
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