Governor Martin Elechi
Embattled Governor of Ebonyi State, Chief Martin Elechi has accused Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF), Chief Anyim Pius Anyim, Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Uche Secondus and National Publicity Secretary of PDP, Olisa Metu of masterminding the impeachment plot against him.
The allegation is coming on the hills of impeachment notice served on him, Friday, by the Ebonyi House of Assembly for alleged gross misconduct.
In an eight count charge signed by fifteen lawmakers and read on the floor of the House by the Acting Leader, Ogbonnaya Nwifuru, the lawmakers declared that the alleged gross misconduct was a clear violation of the constitution, which prompted them to endorse the notice of impeachment on the governor.
Elechi has been in a running battle with the PDP stakeholders in the State, including Anyim and former Governor Sam Egwu.
However, while addressing journalists at the Executive Council Chambers of Government House Abakaliki, Governor Elechi alleged that Anyim, Secondus, Metu and others within and outside the state offered financial inducement to the lawmakers to impeach him.
He said that the SGF, Anyim had earlier during a national caucus meeting of PDP at Abuja moved a motion for his impeachment on the allegation that he, Elechi, was working against the re-election of President Goodluck Jonathan, and that he had been meeting with former President, Olusegun Obasanjo and former Governor of Adamawa State, Murtala Nyako to work against President Jonathan.
Elechi while denying ever meeting with Chief Obasanjo, whom he described as an-in-law of Ebonyi state, or Nyako, whom he said he saw last during expanded national executive council meeting of PDP before he was impeached, asserted that it was Anyim and his likes, through their divisive activities, that were diminishing the President Jonathan’s campaign effort in the state.
“I mentioned this one of Anyim’s motion (at PDP caucus meeting) because it has come to the public domain. I was to be in that meeting but the notice came less than 24 hours and I had billed myself for other things, so I didn’t attend. I’m relying now on the publications of various papers and other things I hear about Anyim. I didn’t exhaust all of them like his effort to stop the bond which we are eminently qualified for, he tried that but he failed.
“It is interesting for Nigerians to know that the decision to impeach the Governor preceded the finding of justifiable reasons to do so. It is simply the case of giving a dog a bad name in order to hang it.
“The legislator must be convinced that an impeachment is justifiable before he or she can consent to it. But because there have been no justifiable reasons, many honourable members of Ebonyi State House of Assembly received threat messages to either append their signatures or risk assassination and/or a kidnap of their family members.
“Others are coerced from the National Headquarters of the PDP to give their bank particulars so that (inducement) money will be paid into them. The accused agents in this regard are, respectively, Uche Secondus (Deputy National Chairman) and Olisa Metu (National Publicity Secretary). In consequence of the foregoing many Hon. Members of Ebonyi State House of Assembly have either fled the state or are in hiding,” he alleged.
Elechi blamed his ordeal to the controversy surrounding the PDP primaries in November/December 2014, which he said led to large number of PDP members moving enmass to the Labour Party (LP), even as he reiterated his earlier stand that nobody can beat a child and stop him from crying.
He said that the SGF had been using the federal power to terrorise his administration with EFCC and ICPC, who arrest and detain government officials and his son and eventually froze the account of Ebonyi State/Local Government Joint Account, even before the conclusion of their investigation.
Elechi said that he was supposed to be the chairman of Presidential Campaign committee of President Jonathan in the state but he was denied campaign materials including TAN rice and N80 million which was paid into the personal account of former Minister of Culture and Tourism, Amb Frank Ogbuewu.
He said that already, the development was generating bad blood in the state as some individuals were asking for account of the money.
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