Daily Independent Online.
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Thursday, June 17, 2004.
Abia deputy gov yet to be served impeachment notice
By Uche Nwosu
Special
Correspondent, Umuahia
Forty-eight hours after the Abia State
House of Assembly passed a resolution mandating its Speaker, Sir Stanley
Ohajuruka, to serve an impeachment notice on the state Deputy Governor, Dr
Chima Nwafor, the office of the embattled deputy governor says it has yet to
receive the impeachment notice as of close of work on Wednesday.
Daily Independent learnt that as of
the close of work on Wednesday, Nwafor, who according to sources got wind of
the impeachment move passed by the House on Monday from the media, has not got
the letter indicting and labelling him as a security risk.
By Wednesday, it was learnt that there were
some subterranean moves by the Governor, Dr Orji Uzor Kalu, and some
stakeholders in the state to resolve the issue amicably and douse the already
heated up polity.
When this paper called at the office of the
deputy governor, his Press Secretary, Chief Alozie Ndulaka, said that the Abia
number two citizen would want to be left out of any press controversy for now
but insists that he had not received any impeachment notice.
Ndulaka said emphatically, “As I am
talking to you, today is Wednesday 16 June, 2004, the deputy governor is yet to
receive any official communication from the House of Assembly with respect to
the said impeachment notice. Nothing like that, no communication has come from
the House.”
On the relationship between the governor
and his deputy, Alozie described it as most cordial, stressing that “to
show how close the two political leaders were, they always worship together and
perform official functions together.”
“It’s been very cordial and most
of the time he (Nwafor) would join us in the chapel for the early morning
devotion, where before we take off for the day’s activities we seek
God’s blessings and guidance. The governor worships with the deputy
governor and after each devotion, the deputy governor accompanies the governor
to his office and they chat and then he returns to his office. Of course, that
shows that the relationship is very cordial,” Ndulaka posited.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Chief Press
Secretary to the Governor, Mr Samuel Onuoha Udeala, dissociated the governor
from the impeachment move.
Udeala, while reacting to series of press
enquiries on whether Kalu had a hand in the impeachment move, denied “Kalu
had a prior knowledge of the move before it was tabled on the floor of the
House.”
