Various interest groups in Ebonyi State have demanded for a detailed investigation over the Tuesday night inferno at the Accounts Section of the State House of Assembly.
Many leaders of thought in the state, including a group -Ebonyi Patriots Coalition have tasked the security agencies to urgently unravel some of the puzzles surrounding the midnight fire.
Apart from the Accounts Section of the Assembly which was the worst hit, the other sections affected by the mystery fire were the Office of the Deputy Speaker Hon Blaise Oji and the Office of the embattled Leader of the House Hon Sam Nwali.
Interestingly, these are offices belonging to members of the Assembly who recently defected to the Labour Party following the crisis that trailed the primaries of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) last year.
To many dispassionate observers, the burning of the Accounts Department of the Assembly is particularly worrisome following the long running allegations of financial improprieties levelled against the Speaker Hon Chukwuma Nwazunku and some floor functionaries of the house for which the Speaker has survived two impeachment attempts by his colleagues.
The first was in July and the second on November 10, 2014. In July, Governor Elechi intervened to save the Speaker who had already been replaced by his colleagues with another member Hon Helen Nwobashi and in November, the Speaker was saved by an Abakaliki High Court presided over by Justice Anselm Nwigwe which ruled his impeachment unprocedural.
In the heels of the Speaker’s declaration of the Seats of four members of the house vacant, last week, for defecting from the PDP to the Labour Party, the aggrieved members fired several petitions to the EFCC and ICPC to investigate the alleged embezzlement of the Assembly funds.
Coming at a time when the anti graft agencies are expected to commence investigations into the finances of the Assembly, the burning of the House is seen by many as an attempt to frustrate any meaningful probe.
In his reaction, the Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, Ebonyi State Mr Ngaji Nwodo placed responsibility for the fire incident on the leadership of the Assembly.
“It is abnormal for the fire to select only the accounts section and the offices of opposition members for destruction while the other sections are spared”, he said.
According to him, “the fire incident is a brazen attempt to cover up the numerous allegations of financial recklessness against the house leadership”.
The climate of suspicion surrounding the Ebonyi Assembly fire is not helped by the fact that apart from the Account Section, only the offices of the members who defected to the Labour Party were affected by the fire while the Assembly Chamber, the Speakers office and others were not affected.
To worsen the disquieting situation, the House of Assembly, on the same Tuesday the fire incident took place, proceeded to declare vacant, the Seats of two more members: the Deputy Speaker Hon Blaise Oji and Hon Oliver Nwachukwu for defecting to the opposition.
The suspicion in many circles is that the fire disaster may have been carefully staged to coincide with the alleged impeachment moves against Governor Elechi to give the impression that the Governor’s sympathizers were behind the fire incident thereby diverting attention from the real motives of the perpetrators.
When he visited the Assembly Complex on Tuesday to assess the situation, the state Governor Chief Martin Elechi described the incident as a tragedy and charged security agencies to get to the root of the matter.
Conducting the Governor round the affected parts of the Assembly Complex, the Speaker Hon Nwazunku said he and his colleagues were greatly disturbed by the turn of events.
The pioneer Speaker of the House of Assembly and APC Governorship candidate in Ebonyi state Senator Julius Ucha visited the Assembly Wednesday and described the incident as the handiwork of those who were desperate to govern the state at all costs.
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