| ‘Kalu knows about
impeachment plot against deputy’
By KINGSLEY EMERUWA, Umuahia
Sunday, July 25, 2004
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• Abia
State governor, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu with Chairman of
Lungwu Nig. Ltd, Alhaji Usman Baba at the Murtala Muhammed
Airport, Ikeja at the weekend.
Photo: WALE OLUFADE
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Abia State governor, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu, has been fingered
as the unseen hand behind the ongoing moves to impeach his
embattled Deputy, Dr. Chima Nwafor.
A statement by Chief Tony Ukasanya, a former chairman of the
state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said
people should not get deceived by the seeming disinterest
of Kalu in the goings on in the Abia State House of Assembly,
alleging that the governor had promised the legislators hansome
rewards if they succeeded in booting out Nwafor.
Ukasanya said that although the state House of Assembly has
the constitutional power to initiate impeachment proceedings
against the Deputy Governor, the current bid was at the instance
of Kalu. He reminded the House that the deputy governor had
not committed any offence and that he was just being framed
up by persons who have a hidden agenda, which is not known
to most other members of the Assembly.
The former party chairman who has since fallen out with Kalu
said: “Members of the Abia State House of Assembly are
bent on impeaching the Deputy Governor, Dr. Chima Nwafor and
this is influenced by the Abia State Governor, Chief Orji
Kalu. I want the legislators to realize that no less than
ninety percent (90%) of them are starters in politics and
therefore should not allow themselves to be used for selfish
reasons by anybody”.
Pointing out that not too many people are sold on the seeming
tough talks of the House, asking the governor to stay off
its pproceedings, Ukasanya warned the lawmakers that “what
they are trying to do now is self-destruct, because the current
impeachment move against the Deputy Governor is capable of
destroying their political life in Abia State”.
The former chairman who claimed the credit of having most
of the current legislators elected to the house said that
information at his disposal indicated that members of the
Assembly plan to defy the pleas of the National Working Committee
(NWC) and later turn around to apologise to the party. He
warned that defying the party will amount to gross indiscipline
and insub-ordination. It will not work out this time around”.
He said that as the political father of the many of the lawmakers,
it was his desire that all his political sons succeed in their
political endeavours. He decried a situation whereby, rather
than concentrating on rebuilding the state and its broken
down infrastructure, the governor was busying himself plotting
the impeachment of his deputy.
He advised them to ignore whatever promises of juicy rewards
now being waved before them and consider the long term interest
of their respective political careers by distancing themselves
from the impeachment plot.
Ukasanya further noted that “if the House goes ahead
to impeach Dr. Chima Nwafor, as the Deputy Governor of Abia
State, it will be on record that Abia State has consistently
remained in the throes of impeachment imbroglio in the last
five years”.
The PDP chieftain’s statement further read: “Rather
than concentrate efforts on the impeachment move, what is
needed now is for the legislators to dissipate energy on ways
of bringing the much sought after democracy dividends to our
teeming people.
“Today, Abia State is the poorest in the country and
this is the time for all hands to be on deck to reverse the
ugly trend”.
The allusion now is that the deputy governor may be paying
for his role in the Kalu/Anenih death threat saga -
whereby he allegedly told the governor that Anenih threatened
to kill him only to tell the PDP leadership that he never
told Kalu any such thing. The move to impeach Nwafor is being
viewed as Kalu’s way of constitutionally dealing with
him.
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