Barely 24 hours after it received the report from the investigative panel, members of the Enugu State House of Assembly on Tuesday impeached the deputy governor of the state, Mr. Sunday Onyebuchi. His impeachment followed his indictment by a seven-man panel of inquiry, which investigated allegations levelled against him by members of the Enugu State House of Assembly. The panel, in its report, held that Onyebuchi was guilty of the allegations brought against him.
“The allegations of gross misconduct levelled against the Deputy Governor of Enugu State, Mr. Sunday Onyebuchi, by the Enugu State House of Assembly have been proved,” the panel, headed by Mr. Franklin Oraekeyi, stated in the report.
The members of the house adopted the report of the panel after the House Leader, Hon. S.K.E. Udeh-Okoye, moved a motion for its adoption.
Ude-Okoye, who sponsored the motion on notice alongside 21 other members of the house, numbered HM/06/2014, noted that the motion was in line with the provisions of section 188 (9) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, which provided for the removal of members of the executive arm of government.
The motion called for a resolution of the house to consider the report of the investigation panel on the allegations of gross misconduct of the deputy governor, and that the house, having carefully considered the report of the investigative panel, “do adopt it.”
Onyebuchi was accused of running an illegal poultry in his official residence, an offence according to a resolution of the house, and also refusing to represent Governor Sullivan Chime at official functions, in spite of a directive from the governor.
The lawmakers, in the impeachment notice, held that the said actions amounted to gross misconduct on Onyebuchi’s part.
However the impeachment has stirred up controversy in the state with some people insisting that it was merely a case of giving a dog a bad name just to hang it while to others, it is good riddance to bad rubbish. The deputy governor denied the allegations, insisting that he was witch-hunted for expressing an intention to contest the seat of the Enugu East Senatorial Zone, which is said to be reserved for the governor’s Chief of Staff, Mrs. Ifeoma Nwobodo.
