Obi’s government is a disaster- Obele Chuka

It is no longer news that there is no love lost between Peter Obi government in Anambra state and Chuka Obele Chuka, the fiery Onitsha legal practitioner and former chairman of Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) in the state.

It is common knowledge that Obele Chuka, among other activists, doggedly fought for the restoration of Obi’s stolen mandate, a gesture which Obi himself never seizes to admit. But the centre no longer holds between the two erstwhile soul-mates. The past few weeks have witnessed an unprecedented media warfare (in which the duo had hauled verbal grenades at each other).

What has gone wrong between these two former ‘good friends’? And where is this face-off leading the state?

It has to be pointed out that Obele Chuka Obele is no stranger to political fights like this. On the platform of his Onitsha bar between 2002 and 2003, Obele battled former Governor Chinwoke Mbadinuju to a stand-still. Indeed, Obele’s anti-Mbadinuju’s crusades, especially, wth regards to his (Mbadinuju)’s alleged killing of the Igwes stands as a major reason Mbadinuju lost out in his second term bid in 2003.

Is a similar scenario playing out in Obele, Governor Obi feud? Only time will tell! Recently, Obele gave an insight into his face-off with Governor Obi of All People’s Grand Alliance (APGA). Obele, among other things, alleges that the administration of Obi is both a disaster and a huge fraud. You must not have read this elsewhere.

Having been in the fore front of human rights activism, how would you assess the state of human rights in Nigeria, particularly, in Anambra state?

Let me limit myself to issues of Anambra state for now. We have a crucial battle to rescue our people from the misgovernance of Governor Peter Obi of Anambra state- Nigeria. In Anambra, the present government did not only embargo employment, it is not also creating jobs it covenanted in his campaign brochures to use to fight crimes. The only attempt at creating jobs is the purchase of few mass transit mini buses and the terror machine known as Anambra State Traffic Agency (ASTA). Obi’s government unleashes the agency on hapless citizens to extort sundry illegal levies. ASTA and other Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) agents have constituted themselves into monsters which employ Gestapo tactics to terrify the citizens in the name of generating and hitting the N1billion monthly revenue benchmark set out by the state government.

Health wise, the situation is alarming. Doctors in Anambra are on strike, the second time in 9 months. And our Governor says he does not know why they are strike. Only God knows the number of persons who have lost their lives as a result of the doctors’ strike. Primary health-care in the state has virtually collapsed, and that is part of the reason the doctors went on strike. Go to the General Hospital and see the huge fraud that Peter Obi calls kidney dialysis centre. The building is collapsing and no single equipment is there.

People are trapped daily in horrible traffic snarls as a result of neglect of our road networks or shoddy rehabilitation of roads.

The lives of Anambra citizens have become, if you do not mind, miserable, nasty and brutish.

Education in the state is parlous. Even Agulu Boys Secondary School, located in the governor’s hometown, and his alma mater, St Joseph’s Boys Secondary School in Aguleri, are in a decrepit state. Agulu Boys was the best college in infrastructure some years back. Take a visit to the school and you will shed tears. Number of students per class is averaging 55. None of the workers was paid his/her salary last December.

Water Corporation workers are yet to be paid since Peter Obi came into office, and they are starving to death. Over 40 have died, over 20 bedridden by stroke.

Anambra State Environmental Protection Agency (ANSEPA) workers are owed over 22 months salary arrears, as well as other entitlements.

Awka, Nnewi and Onitsha are dirtier than Peter Obi met them.

And it is obvious that there is no pipe borne water in this state.

But why attack a Government you risked your life to recover its stolen mandate and to enthrone. KlinReports remember that you led a city wide protest in 2003 in Awka during which you miraculously escaped being killed by soldiers guarding the INEC office at Awka. In 2006, you dared a large number of mobile policemen and soldiers to confront and object to the former Chief Judge Chuka Okoli’s inauguration of the impeachment panel. Why the sudden turn around?

I risked my life for our society which includes me, my children, you and your kids. But I am, also, a strong believer that one is a true friend if one looks you in the face and tell you where you err. All that I am saying now, I have told the Governor Peter Obi in private. In 2008, I walked out of his work plan presentation at Sharon Hall, Onitsha and told him to leave former Governor Chris Ngige alone and go to work. Immediately this was published, he sent emissaries who came to my office. Some others called me on the phone – all to arrange a meeting with the governor, for settlement. My response was consistent: ‘Please ask him to go to work and use our money to give us quality development’. I was getting embarrassed on a daily basis everywhere I went by glaring evidence of wishy washy jobs being celebrated as achievements. I never knew Peter Obi or even heard his name in any circle until he entered the governorship race in 2002. I was never his friend in the real sense of the word, but what, perhaps, brought us together was the false declaration made by INEC that Ngige won the 2003 governorship election and my personal resolve, as had always been the case, not to allow that false declaration stand.

Could you respond to the allegation by Peter Obi’s government and its agents that you’ve taken up this fight against the Governor because he refused to appoint you attorney general and commissioner for justice of the state as compensation for your role in working for his emergence and sustenance in office?

This allegation is the surest sign of a dying regime. It has never been my habit to seek favors. I am an iconoclast of sorts. No doubt, Obi was always courting me, laboring always to tell people that I am his friend because he was the direct beneficiary of my modest struggle, alongside other activists and well meaning Ndi Anambra, to reclaim the stolen mandate. Then, I was a huge role model to him whose integrity was unimpeachable, and he never sponsored me and my integrity rubbed off on him. Today, I have become little Chuka Obele, that is how the advertorials he sponsors against me in the papers describe me, because according to him, Ngige is sponsoring me. I do not blame Peter Obi because it shows how petty he is, and that explains the pedestrian level he has brought down governance. I had rejected even gifts he offered me including cash before he became Governor.

When did you start observing these alleged short-comings of Governor Obi?

I must say that I started noticing some of these character traits of Peter Obi before the impeachment saga. Three months in office, I called him and expressed my dismay over his abandonment of roads started by Ngige. He claimed he knew what he was doing. But the notice of impeachment was a turning point. When I saw the items of offences listed by the pro-impeachment lawmakers and met the governor, I told him that he was guilty of most items in the impeachment notice which included what most of us who stood for the people’s mandate had been telling him in private- do not abandon roads started by your predecessor; stop giving preference to Fidelity Bank; do not save our funds in the banks while our people suffer; release allowances of members of the state legislature (N3m naira approved by his predecessor); stop awarding sensitive contracts to your friends who have no capacity to execute them; stop smearing your predecessor even on church pulpits; cease eulogizing former President Olusegun Obasanjo to high heavens. In fact, during the church service for the late justice Egbuna at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, Onitsha (this was before his impeachment), I stood up to leave the church when he mounted the pulpit and started ‘bad mouthing’ former Governor Ngige in spite of my advice. It took the intervention of a senior colleague in the Bar who is his lawyer to hold me back even as he, also, said he had advised him against it. I remember I reminded Governor Obi of his campaign vow to do 100 km of road annually. In fact, a coalition of human rights groups under my co-leadership had sent him a comprehensive memo detailing our misgivings with what we thought was his slow pace of governance. I ensured that the memo was delivered to him personally, because had it leaked, we would have been accused of supplying the ammunition for his impeachment. I told him pointedly even as I rejected a suspicious N500, 000.00 he offered me as a condolence token for my father’s burial in the night of October 16, 2006 (the day the notice of impeachment broke), that he was the one who provided the ammunition for the enemies of the state to annul our mandate, and that he should fight the battle alone. He assured me he had the total support of Obasanjo which made me laugh. The same night, I pondered over my decision not to be involved in the looming skirmish and told myself that posterity would never forgive me if I stood by and watched the lawmakers who had ulterior motives to succeed. I told the Governor the condolence token was an inducement to help him fight against his impeachment, because when he paid his condolence visit the previous day, he never gave nor promised to give me any such token. The governor gave either N5, 000.00 or N10, 000.00 condolence token to my family. I pointedly told him off for thinking he could cheapen and reduce my decision to fight against the impeachment in naira and kobo. In fact, I was so angry that I stopped taking his calls. So, it is surreptitious for the governor to sponsor his party chairman to do advertorials in newspapers, claiming that I rejected the N500, 000.00 because I considered it too meager for what I did at inauguration of the Kangaroo panel. Or, that I became angry because the governor refused to make me attorney general of the state as compensation for what the government described as my unsolicited grandstanding during the inauguration of the panel. My father was buried on October 13, 2006 and the rites ended on Sunday October 15. The Governor paid his condolence visit on that last day being October 15. A day after, 0ctober 16, the impeachment notice was initiated by the House. It was the same Monday that the governor called me after the solidarity rally and offered me the N500, 000.00 which I rejected as constituting an inducement. Even the Governor knows that I have a wider interpretation of the words, ‘bribe, gratification and inducement’. The Kangaroo panel was inaugurated on October 30. It was, therefore, absolutely impossible for me to have rejected the N500, 000.00 offered on October 16, as being meager for a condolence token in view of what the governor called my unsolicited act that took place on October 30. Again, by the time the panel was being inaugurated there was a sitting attorney general who had been appointed with my support because the governor called me to make a choice between two candidates. While I chose one, the governor preferred the other but later accepted my choice. And this attorney general was performing the duties of that office well for only four months by the time the impeachment saga broke. The governor was removed about four days after my so-called grandstanding. So the question is, would I have expected the governor to dissolve his about four month old cabinet to remove his A.G. whom I proposed and insisted on his appointment, for the him now to appoint me into the same office? Or would I have been expecting a governor who was impeached about four days after my grandstanding and who remained in political wilderness until February the next year to have appointed me his attorney general in exile? How can N500, 000.00 be a meager sum for a burial token. Even by the time I set out to filibuster the inauguration of the kangaroo panel, I was not on talking terms with him as I discovered gradually that he was always talking ill of people around him.

How do you mean?

If I tell you what the governor said of certain persons including current members of his cabinet and his legal team you will never respond to salutations from them. He was literally painting everybody black only to deny it if confronted in the presence of his victim. At one time after his return he invited me to Agulu and I went with my former partner who was to contest for the house of Assembly election. At Agulu, he flaunted a document claiming to be evidence of Etiaba’s embezzlement of N38 billion he saved, and employment of more than 2000 Nnewi indigenes into the government in her three months as governor and solicited our organization’s support to convey the information to Anambra people and to publicly support his tenure determination suit. When I requested for a copy of the document, he merely read out typical Nnewi names and said it was a sensitive document. During a particular period, I stopped taking Peter Obi’s calls because I was growing weary of his dishonesty, and as a result of my growing concern of his capacity to deliver on the huge expectations of people like us. It took the call made by the governor through the cell phone of his friend who was then my client, Chief Chris Emoka, and the latter’s pleas, for me to talk to him after a long while. This was during the impeachment saga. By that time, he was broken physically, spiritually and emotionally, and had discovered that Obasanjo and Andi Uba were behind his impeachment. That was when he made another wrong move by reaching out to the pro impeachment lawmakers to offer them money to avert the impeachment. I advised him, when he sought my view, against it knowing that it had gone beyond the lawmakers demand for their N3 million entitlements, but he said the lawmakers interest was money and their demand was N20 million each, and that he had also settled the Chief Judge with N60 million which he (C.J) demanded. About four days after delivering the second and last installment of N20 million per legislator, our governor was impeached. When I visited him in his hotel he was weeping and apologizing that he never heeded the advice of well meaning persons like me. He swore in the presence of a friend I took along, but who he is now using to malign me, that should he return back to office, he would depart from his old ways. Peter Obi broke down in tears. Sadly, when he returned he persisted in his old ways and, in fact, grew worse day by day. The same man who asked his deputy, Ma Etiaba, to take over to avoid the then Speaker from taking over as Acting Governor, turned round to accuse the old woman of betrayal, and went on to sponsor stories in the papers that she embezzled N38 billion he saved before his impeachment. He, also, refused to file the tenure determination suit as soon as he took office. I only discovered the reason when I learnt that he had entered into a pact with Andy Uba and Obasanjo to have Ngige removed through the courts with an understanding that he would serve for the unexpired residue of that four year term and make way for Andy Uba in 2007.

It is laughable for Peter Obi to allege that he offered me N500,000.00 as compensation, a man who gives all his security details N200.00 daily for their meals and who is alleged to be taking the entire so-called monthly security vote of N150 million to his personal account.

I really do not think that Peter Obi knows what he is doing. How can he fall so low as to sponsor adverts that I belong to secret societies and occult church, when he attended the opening of our church branch in Awka. Let me tell you, each time I hear people discuss Peter Obi’s membership of Seadogs and Ogboni Fraternity as the cause of his poor governance, I rebuke them on the ground that there is freedom of association and religion. Secondly, I know of members of Ogboni Fraternity who were honest and competent administrators, governors and premiers.

What could be said to be the origin of this face-off between you and Governor Obi.

The much he did upon his return from his unlawful removal was to call me on the phone offering N5m to be a plaintiff in a suit he wanted filed to have Andy Uba disqualified from contesting. I felt insulted and told him off. He told me he had arranged and paid Abuja based lawyers who would file the papers in my name because his lead lawyer was campaigning for Andi Uba to become governor and that he did not trust him. He called the President of ASA –USA and top APGA leadership to persuade me which also failed. I do not want to say, for now, the many ugly propositions of the Peter Obi which I rejected.

It is my hope that the next governor will probe and determine who burnt the Governor’s Lodge at Onitsha. But one thing is certain: the governor’s allegation that it was burnt by Andi Uba is absolute falsehood.

When the Water Corporation pensioners brought their predicament to me, I wrote the governor but he gave no heed. When I heard his argument on the matter on television, it flew in the face. I suspected he was playing pranks.

I took the matter before the House of Assembly for investigation. I was shocked to learn that the House had approved, in 2006, the sum of N805million naira for the payment of all arrears of salaries and pensions of the affected workers and retirees in 2007. To my greatest shock, on the floor of the house, the governor’s special adviser, Engineer Nick Obi, admitted that the N805m was kept in the bank since, and that the Governor was arranging to give out the money as a loan to a private federal contractor to revive the Water Corporation. It will surprise you to learn that till date that money is still lying in the bank accumulating interest and the loan is yet to be given and the workers are dying everyday. And the interests are yet to be accounted for. And the bank is trading with this money.

Over 40 staff and pensioners have died since 2006. A woman staff starved to death in her room. Over 14 are bedridden, lacking money to buy medication.

There was a case of the woman shot by soldiers who were ordered by the Governor Obi to shoot and kill members of the Movement for the Actualization of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) for which he (Obi), on television, promised that his government would pay compensation. I wrote him in connection with that, but he started playing pranks after replying my letter. It became apparent that he wanted to either create the impression to the widower that I was the cause of his non payment or here was a con man at his worst.

What are other instances of your disagreements with Peter Obi’s government?

As months went into years I observed the propaganda inclination of the government. Let me put it on public record that the only demand I made of the present government when it took office were four, namely, Good governance, comprehensive take over by the state of the upkeep and education of the three orphans of my chairman, B.C. and A.B. Igwe, re-naming of the street where they were butchered to death by Mbadinuju’s Bakkassi Boys, and recommending them for a posthumous national award. This was in March 2006 when he sent an emissary inviting me and then Chairperson of Civil Liberties Organization (CLO), Emeka Umeagbalasi, to the lodge to make an offer of appointment which, of course, I turned down. In fact, I had also requested him to empower the CLO Chairperson whose business had virtually collapsed as a result of his commitment towards retrieving the stolen mandate. Prior to this, in fact three days to the Court of Appeal Judgment, the governor sent his confidant, a reputed Agulu man, to sound me out on taking the A.G. appointment. I flatly rejected it and gave my reasons. The man asked me to recommend who the A.G would be. My question on how Obi knew he was going to win even before the day slated for judgment was never answered to my satisfaction. The same reasons I gave to his confidant was accepted by the governor when we met him in the lodge.

I am hugely disappointed with Obi’s government because everywhere I go I am embarrassed by our people who verbally assault me for what they consider as my sin in contributing to its emergence.

I learnt Obi has budgeted over N60million to print leaflets and produce tapes to sustain their smear campaigns against me. It is as bad as that. It shows the level of the person who calls himself a governor. My happiness is that my strident criticism is compelling him to rehabilitate, even though poorly, some roads in Onitsha city, to award contracts for the upgrading of his Pentium 1 Pcs to Pentium 3 and to reverse himself that he would not pay water corporation staff and so on. But we must watch him on the water corporation matter so that it will not be a conduit for any diversion of Anambra money.

Even his Agulu people have vented their spleen by destroying one of his campaign billboards and completely defacing another all located in the heart of the town. This government is an unmitigated disaster. My greatest worry is that this government is becoming a huge fraud.

Why did you say so?

Not only that the government is not performing, it is elevating the art of deception to a tool of governance. How will Peter Obi’s government package itself as performing when it is not? And use our hard earned money and scarce resources to project achievements that are un-existing or, at best, white elephant projects and procuring pseudo activists to parrot its so-called achievements. If the totality of what the governor and his so-called activists supporters are parroting constitute the achievements which cannot be up to N20billion then we must hold him to account for the over 120billion that has accrued so far to the state since he came into office.

Governor Peter Obi has always prided his administration as following due process and the rule of law. So, how would you reconcile the abuse by his agencies and these instances you have mentioned?

Peter Obi has never prided himself as one whose governance is predicated on the rule of law. It is President Yar’Adua who claims and, in fact, trumpets that. It is beyond dispute, however, that the present governor is a beneficiary of the rule of law. But in the three years of his governance, he has done the opposite. Where will I start?

Let me start from the markets. Go to all the markets and their associations, which in the main, are Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs), the governor has directly interfered and ensured that elections are not conducted in the market associations on the flimsy, lame and provocative excuse that the conditions are not conducive. Peter Obi is so unpopular that any time the elections are held, his preferred candidates whom he hopes to use for his second term campaign would be trounced. Like in the case of Local Government Election, he has imposed interim committees on all the markets. As I speak, the situation is very tense in the markets. I believe any moment from now the markets may close down in protest against the governor’s direct interference with the markets. I have lost count of the number of court orders which directed Peter Obi’s government to hold council elections in the state and restrained his appropriation of the council funds. I must be frank: am hugely disappointed by the governor. Is there any due process in a governor who uses all the state apparatus and resources personnel and properties of the State to campaign for his second term in office? The other day it was reported that Governor Peter Obi’s wife spends about N10m from the budget of the Ministry of Women Affairs on each of her tours out of the 177 communities. What I want the EFCC to immediately move in to investigate is if such an expenditure of public funds by one who is neither elected nor appointed into a government is allowed under the law. If not, the tour and the attendant expenditure must stop and a refund made. Multiply N10m by 177, it gives us over N1.7billion wasted on a second term tour! Let me be frank with you, EFCC needs to investigate the current notorious allegations of round tripping of government’s funds between contractors, some top government officials and Fidelity and Intercontinental Banks. EFCC should investigate the flying allegations of massive embezzlement of local government funds by the executive arm.


On a final note, Peter Obi has come, and like Mbadinuju, will soon pass away, only leaving behind bad memories for Ndi Anambra. My other worry is that Peter Obi will end up worse than Mbadinuju. What a tragedy!

Shocker! Robbers roast policemen to death

The dark days of bullion van robberies in commercial banks in Aba, the commercial town of Abia state, Nigeria have returned after short period of relief by the bankers.(Photo right shows the governor of the state, Chief Theodore Orji)

KlinReports learnt that over fifty armed robbers, very recently, ambushed a CBN bullion van transferring cash from Aba to Owerri at Aro-Ngwa Junction in Umuimo along Port-Harcourt–Enugu highway.

The gang of armed robbers rained bullets on the billion van, deflecting its tyres. With the aid of a gas-wedding machine, the hoodlums gained access to the cash and made away with unspecified amount. The amount involved, of course, runs into several millions of naira.

The operation which lasted for hours turned out bloody, as the police escort vehicle accompanying the bullion van was set ablaze. An eyewitness told KlinReports that some police escort roasted alongside the bullion van. To worsen the already exacerbated situation, an armored personnel carrier (APC), mobilized to the scene for a rescue operation, was demobilized by the dare-devil robbers with an explosive. While police sources put the death toll to two (a policeman and the driver of the bullion van), eye witnesses say about ten persons lost their lives in the bloody armed robbery operation.

According to Okechukwu Ali, the state’s Police Public Relations Officer (PRO), the robbers who were later traced to a hide out in a community in Obingwa council area of the state where they were sharing their loot. Ali accused members of the community of aiding the robbers in setting ablaze four police patrol vans conveying a combined team of police and soldiers and members of the Abia State Vigilante Services (AVS). The police image maker said investigations had commenced into the incident.

It would be recalled that between 2006 and 2008, Aba and environs were characterized by incessant bullion van robberies along the highways especially the Ikot-Ekpene Road axis of the commercial town. Human losses within this time range, it was learnt, amounted to over 100 police personnel and civilians, while losses in cash and other materials were over N100 billion.

But the trend abated from mid 2008 when banks in the state devised a strategy of airlifting cash through helicopters. The football pitch of Abia State Polytechnic and a mini-pitch at the Central Police Station at Aba were used as landing points. Also, incessant kidnap of bank staff and bank bullion van robberies forced banks in Abia State to go on strike for two days last year, grounding economic activities in the state for the period.

Several theories have been propounded as the cause of this ugly trend. Barrister Olusegun Bamgbose, the founder and president of Millennium Advancement Project (MAP), an organization charged with the responsibility of youth’s enlightenment and re-orientation blames the trend on the rate of unemployment in the country.

“Other measures outside devising means of improving the employment rate in the country as a means of fighting crime may seem half-bake. There is a common saying that a hungry man is the devil’s workshop. The government should seriously do something about unemployment if they are not paying lip service to the problem of crime in the society” Bamgbose asserts.

But Uche Wisdom Durueke (Esq), National Vice President of Civil Liberties organization (CLO) and Executive Director of Center for Development, Constitutionalism, Peace and Advocacy (CD-COPA) in a round-table held by the latter organization in the Southeast geo-political zone, blames the rate of crime in the zone, especially armed banditry and robbery, on mass circulation of light weapons and small arms.

According to Durueke, the situation escalated as a result of the 2003 re-election bids of public office holders then that stopped at nothing to actualize this by even equipping miscreants with arms.

“What we are suffering is a by-product of selfish and over-ambitious politicians who thought then that politics is a do or die affairs. They equipped hoodlums with arms which they couldn’t recover. It is a case of offering a glass of water to monkey but the inability to recover the glass”, Barrsiter Durueke posits.

Emeka Ogbonna of the Popular Participation Front blames the incidence on some insiders in the banks who allegedly relay information to those bandits for economic rewards.

“To me, I don’t think those operations could succeed without insiders’ information. How do these boys know when cash is moving and so on? The banks, security agents and government should seriously look towards this direction”, Ogbonna submits.

Among the theories, the most valid seems to be that of Wisdom Durueke. Between late 2002 and early 2003, a vehicle allegedly belonging to the Rivers State Government was arrested with some arms at Opobo Junction, Ogbor-Hill, Aba. Few days after the arrest, the driver of the vehicle died in the detention under suspicious circumstances.

Also, reports indicate that there are mass importation and exportation of arms, especially, in some communities in Abia South zone of Abia State. Accusing fingers are pointing in the direction of a community around the area, noted for manufacturing sophisticated weapons.

Can the Nigerian government intervene to save the city of Aba and its dwellers?

Nnubia: a kidnap baron on trial

Chief Ignatius Nnubia, an Enugu oil dealer, who has been incriminated in various kidnap incidents in southeast Nigeria, is finally put on trial after a long time of underhand tricks by Enugu state police command. Nnubia, among chains of other businesses, runs the largest filling station in Enugu metropolis called, Conoil.

Nnubia’s kidnap syndicate was, December last year, smashed by the police command which, as a result of suspected compromise, had been foot-dragging in bringing him (and his kidnap gang) to justice. The kidnap kingpin was said to have heavily induced Enugu state police command to buy his freedom. KlinReports learnt that it was as a result of this that the command refused to parade him before members of the public like other previously arrested kidnap suspects.

Thanks to the intervention of the government of Barrister Sullivan Chime which insisted on the prosecution of Nnubia and his co-travelers for their kidnap exploits in the southeast geo-political zone (Igboland). Nnubia’s syndicate, as a matter of fact, reached their dead end when they kidnapped Dr. Francis Edemobi, younger brother to Professor Dora Akunyili, former director general of National Agency for Food and Drug Administration (NAFDAC). Akunyili is the current Nigerian information minister. Edemobi, a father of four and real estate guru, is the president of Paul and Grace Foundation, an Enugu-based humanitarian organization.

Nnubia’s kidnap gang held Edemobi hostage for four days, without food. It was while the bandits were still bargaining for ransom with the Akunyilis that the police team swooped on them, killing two and arresting one.

At last, Enugu state police command, on Tuesday January 13, commenced the prosecution of the kidnap suspects, including their kingpin, Nnubia. The suspects, including Emmanuel Okoli (46), Anthony Chigbo (48), Anike Ejike (28), Nnubia’s driver and Okorie Ifeukwe (40), are standing trial before a magistrate court in Enugu, presided over by Joy Okibe, on a five-count charge of armed robbery, illegal possession of firearms, kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment of Edemobi.

The kidnap suspects, among other charges, conspired with some other persons at large to, at gun point, rob Edemobi and some of his personal belongings and cash. Nnubia, the kidnap patron, is, in the third count, accused of unlawful possession of an English-made Barretta pistol, eight rounds of AK 47 live ammunition and 35 rounds of 9mm live ammunition without license by the inspector general of police. The accused persons respectively committed offences contrary to sections 6 (b) and 1 (2) (a) of the Armed Robbery and Firearms (Special Provision) Act, 2004. Nnubia, on his part, committed an offence punishable under section 3 (1) of the same act.

But Nnubia’s counsel, Chuma Oguejiofor, after the charge was read, argued that it was unconstitutional for the police to have held the accused persons in custody since December last year. But the police, represented by Inspector Ernest Eriagu, retorted that the suspects were kept on a ‘holding charge’, which Oguejiofor insisted was alien to Nigeria’s law. Oguejiofor remonstrated that Okibe’s court lacked jurisdiction to try the case, especially, as it involved armed robbery. The lawyer, also, contested the first three counts of the charge, contending that they were brought under the Robbery and Firearms (Special Provision) Act, 2004, a provision, he contended, is silent on the jurisdiction of magistrate courts to prosecute armed robbery cases.

Oguejiofor’s contention, in the main, is that the kidnap and armed robbery case ought to have been brought before the state high court following the legal opinion of the attorney-general and commissioner of justice. The counsel, as a result, called on the court to withdraw from handling the matter for onward transmission to a court of competent jurisdiction (which is the high court). Return date for ruling on jurisdiction, as raised by Nnubia’s counsel, Oguejiofor, is, however, slated for next month.

This kidnap case is, indeed, a high profile one, as the state’s attorney general and commissioner for justice, Chief Nduka Ikeyi, even announced appearance in court (to demonstrate the commitment of Chime’s government towards eradication of kidnaps and violent crime in the state). Ikeyi, among other things, urged the court to remand the accused in prison custody pending determination of the case.
In a bid to prevent the rising wave of kidnaps and other violent crimes in the state, Chime’s government declares that it would enact a prescribing capital punishment for kidnappers in Enugu state. This decision was taken at a meeting of the state’s executive council on the heels of the shock that trailed abduction and dramatic rescue of Edemobi.
Dr. Jude Akubuilo, special adviser to Governor Chime on special projects and diaspora matters, says the measure is to demonstrate the state’s ‘zero tolerance’ for kidnapping, which according to him, is a ‘cankerworm capable of derailing current successful efforts by the government to re-engineer the state and restore it to its former glory.’
It is as a result of this commitment that Governor Chime ensured that Nnuba and members of his kidnap gang do not evade justice. Apart from frustrating the attempts of Enugu state police command to facilitate Nnubia’s freedom, Chime has sworn to see to the end of this heinous crime threatening peace and stability of his state.
KlinReports condemns the prevarication on the part of the police to duly parade and arraign Nnubia and his co-travelers in kidnap incidents in Enugu state and parts of Igboland. On the other hand, we commend Governor Chime for resisting pressures from dubious quarters and allow the police to set rich Nnubia free without bringing him to justice.
Our position is that no member of the public should be allowed to use his/her privileged position to commit crimes and go scot-free. Since one of the arrested kidnappers, Mohammed Ali (30), strongly testified that Nnubia has been sponsoring all their kidnap assignments, including that of Edemobi, the onus is on our law enforcement agencies to bring him to justice, his immense wealth notwithstanding.

Obi, don't kill Obele Chuka- Igwe family

Obi can't kill! Obele is a rabble rouser- Obienyem

The last is yet to be heard of the dastard murder of two (couple) lawyers, Barnabas and Abigail Igwe, in Onitsha, the commercial town of Anambra state, on September 2, 2002, during the regime of Dr. Chinwoke Mbadinuju as governor of the state. Mbadinuju governed the state from 1999 till 2003.

Before now, the mindless killings pitted the Igwe family, being represented by their lawyer, Chuka Obele Chuka, against former Governor Mbadinuju.

But at the moment, the bereaved Igwe family drags Peter Obi, the incumbent governor of the state, into the endless controversies trailing the murder of the couple (with their unborn baby). The family, in a press statement made available to KlinReports, among other things, accuses Obi’s government of planning to assassinate Chuka Obele Chuka, her lawyer because of his (Obele)’s legal tussles for justice in the couple’s murder. The statement, signed by Vincent Igwe on behalf of the family, recollects that the on-going verbal attacks on Obele in the state present the same scenario which led to the mindless assassination of the couple in 2002.

The Igwes were, in the first instance, murdered amidst a lingering face-off between the Onitsha branch of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), chaired by Barnabas Igwe, and Mbadinuju government concerning Mbadinuju’s alleged maladministration of the state.

Of course, Obi’s government roundly debunks the allegations contained in the Igwe family’s press statement. It is, also, the conviction of the government that that the statement was instigated by Chuka Obele to settle a perceived personal score with Obi’s government. Below are both the text of the statement and Obi’s government’s response to it:

Igwe family’s press statement:

Our attention has been drawn to the vile campaign of calumny sponsored by Governor Peter Obi of Anambra state against our family lawyer, Chuka Obele-Chuka, in which he (Obi), through his party chairman, one Akunwata Mike Kwentoh, sought to politicize the tragic events of September 1, 2002 when our brother, Barnabas Chidi and his wife, Amaka blessing, were cruelly ‘macheted’ to death by Bakkassi Boys under the control and management of the state government then, headed by Dr. Chinwoke Mbadinuju.

First, it is no longer in doubt that it was Mbadinuju’s Bakkassi Boys that murdered our brother and his wife. The Bakkassi Boys who were hired to carry out the cold blood murders had made confessional statements confirming their involvement and they were charged to court for the offence.

We need not bother reminding Governor Obi that our brother and his wife were brutally killed by the state government for the principled stand against Mbadinuju’s misgovernance of Anambra state. As chairman of Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Onitsha branch and the committee of five branches of the bar in the state, our brother had called on the then Governor Mbadinuju to resign following abundant evidence of his incompetence to govern the state. Although we (the Igwe family) are not from Anambra, our brother and our wife felt obliged to refuse all monetary inducements offered them by Mbadinuju government, and insisted that Mbadinuju should quit and not be allowed to return for a second term in office.

Tragically, obsessed by his second term ambition, Mbadinuju saw our brother as an obstacle to his ambition. He thus became jittery and when his monetary inducements failed, he turned round to accuse our brother of being sponsored by Sir Emeka Offor to destabilize his government. We recall that agents of Governor Mbadinuju, particularly, his special adviser on special projects, Ms Anthonia Tabansi-Okoye, accused our brother and his wife of having “pathological hatred against Mbadinuju”. In fact, the said adviser had used these words against our brother and his wife few weeks before they were attacked and slaughtered by the Bakkassi Boys.

We condemn the reference to our family lawyer (Obele) as an opportunist in his unwavering quest for justice for his two friends despite the enormous risk to his life, legal practice and family, a quest that exposed and brought to trial those involved in the murders of our brother and his wife. There is no gainsaying the fact that Obele-Chuka who is not from Imo state, and who knew our brother only in 1999 has exhibited unparalleled acts of friendship and brotherhood. He has become a brother to our family and a son of Atta town. The specie of this human being is, indeed, rare. In other parts of our country and in other climes around the world, his type is celebrated.

But rather than celebrate him, Governor Peter Obi, who was the greatest beneficiary of this young man’s consistent resistance to injustice, and who was proud to claim, at every turn, to be Obele-Chuka’s friend has decided to unjustifiably tarnish his character for speaking out against his on-going mis-governance of the state. We consider Governor Obi’s accusation that Obele-Chuka wanted to be the Attorney-General of the state as the unkindest lie ever to be uttered. We attest that our family was among the many that mounted pressures, to no avail, on the lawyer to accept an offer of an appointment made by the Governor to serve in his government.

Our family was aware of the request made on the governor by our lawyer, as he rejected the governor’s offer to serve in his government, to award scholarship to the children of our brother and his wife. We were aware that Obele Chuka, also, recommended the slain couple for national honors, having lost their lives for the GOOD GOVERNANCE of the state. Apart from this, Obele enjoined Obi to set up a judicial commission of enquiry into all the extra judicial killings carried out between 2000 an 2002.

It is sad that rather than do what even a sadist would have conceded to, Governor Obi continues to play politics with our family’s plight. During many of his usual television programs, he lied to the people of Anambra state that he is the highest donor to the Endowment Fund established for the three orphans of the Igwes, and that his government has done a lot more. Let us put on record that the best Governor Obi has done was to request our family to release the three orphans to pose for a photo session with him during the last National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) meeting which held in Onitsha recently!

We are terrified by the similarity of the current pattern of events with the ones that culminated in the unlawful killing of our brother and his wife. We are worried because our lawyer (Obele) has, as in the case of Mbadinuju against our brother, been accused of being sponsored by the man the current governor sees as his tormentor in chief, Dr. Chris Ngige. Ngige was the immediate past governor of Anambra state.

Again, Akunwata Mike Kwentoh’s words that our lawyer “has pathological hatred against Governor Obi” were the exact words used by Mbadinuju’s special adviser, Ms Anthonia Tabansi Okoye, against our brother, Barnabas, shortly before he was, alongside his wife, assassinated.

Today, there are signs everywhere that Governor Obi, like Mbadinuju in 2002, is desperate for a second term in office. And like Mbadinuju, Obi is extremely unpopular and, therefore, jittery. And our enquiry revealed that this present government has, in its ranks, several persons who are notorious thugs and fugitives of the laws of many foreign lands and who are capable of repeating the tragic event of September 1, 2002, this time around, against our lawyer, friend and brother Chuka Obele Chuka (Esq). We shall, therefore, hold the present governor responsible should anything untoward happen to Obele-Chuka or any member of his family, either now or in the future.

What Governor Obi owes Anambra people is to use their money to deliver quality jobs now instead of inferior jobs, and not to save the money in the banks where he holds substantial interest. Governor Obi must, also, stop deceiving outsiders that he is performing and, also, leave former Governor Ngige alone, as Ngige has acquired the status of a demi-god following his extra-ordinary service to Anambra people.

The same Governor Obi who has refused to set up a commission of enquiry into the unprecedented UNLAWFUL KILLINGS of over 50,000 people on the streets of Anambra between 2000 and 2002 has set up a kangaroo commission of inquiry into the tenure and transactions in the Electronic Dealers Association, a non governmental traders organization, and also awarded scholarship to the siblings of an unmarried young man who lost his life during the infamous screening exercise by the Nigerian Immigration Services, an award the Governor is even yet to redeem.

We do not wish to engage Kwentoh as we know that a primary school graduate could not have possibly authored such a document. We will not, therefore, be dignifying such a graduate whose work before he veered into politics was his management of a small brothel located in a high density area of the town with a reply.

Obi’s government replies:

Valentine Obienyem, special assistant to Governor Obi on Media, dismisses the allegations against his governor (as contained in the press statement by Igwe family) as tissues of lies. Obienyem sums up the allegations as a vein attempt to distract Obi from carrying on with his good works in the state. Below is an excerpt of our telephone interview with Obienyem:

A recent press statement made available to KlinReports accuses Governor Obi of plotting to assassinate Chuka Obele Chuka, just like the Igwes were murdered in 2002. How would you react to this?
Every Nigerian knows that Governor Peter Obi does not play such politics of assassination, and could not have, in anyway, contemplated any harm on Chuka Obele. Governor Obi can’t kill. For somebody to allege easily that somebody wants to kill him, examine that person very well because it is only killers that make such an allegation. It is only people that kill that always want to say that somebody wants to kill them. My governor is not a killer. Chuka Obele is a rabble rouser and one of the senseless distractions we have in Anambra state, but our governor is too focused to be distracted by somebody like Chuka Obele.

Governor Obi and Chuka Obele were one time soul mates. What has gone amiss?
Nothing has gone wrong. You Know Governor Obi is somebody who believes in principle and uprightness. And he wants people who are focused and chaste in anything they are doing. And once you want him to empty the treasury of the state for you, that is where the problem starts.

How do you mean?
Chuka Obele wants my governor to empty the treasury of the state for him because he was one of those that fought for his success. That is wrong, and that was why Chuka Obele took up fight against Governor Obi. But Obi remains focused. He is too busy to be distracted by Chuka Obele’s shenanigan.

Your government reportedly alleged that Chuka Obele is making trouble because he wanted to be appointed Attorney-General of the state, but he was not?
Yes, Chuka Obele wanted to be appointed attorney general and commissioner for justice in Anambra state just because he claimed to have worked for Peter Obi’s success, but there are more competent people than him. And Governor Obi is a man who believes in competence, not sentiments.

Are you saying there is no current plan by Obi’s government to assassinate Chuka Obele Chuka?
Well, to say that government is planning something against Chuka Obele is to give him the prominence he does not deserve. The governor is busy flagging off road projects everywhere and executing so many projects every week to recognize that somebody like Chuka Obele exists. So, we don’t want to give Chuka Obele that prominence.

What about this talk of Obi’s second term ambition? Is he really interested in a re-run?
You know that Governor Obi still has over a year to serve out his term. He is in a haste to develop the state. Therefore, his attitude is ‘let us work and develop the state’. Whatever happens tomorrow God will decide. Second term or no second term, Obi’s pre-occupation for now is the development of Anambra state.

OUTRAGIOUS! Who murdered Nwachukwu?

Eze Onwukwe Dick (picture right), the traditional ruler of Obete Umuoha Autonomous Community, Obingwa Local Government of Abia State could be described as the proverbial cat with nine lives but he may not escape justice in the present murder of Mr. Kelechi Nwachukwu (26)(picture top left). Members of Obete Umuoha Autonomous Community are allegedly linking him with the murder.

According to sources in the community, Mr. Nwachukwu was shot by members of his self-imposed vigilante outfit, whose membership include Eze Herbert, Azubuike Nna, Aliche Aliche, Nwadike Obi Noah, Enyinnaya Obia, Sam Pius, amongst others on the 11th December, 2008.

A relative of the deceased who spoke on condition of anonymity linked the cause of the murder to a disagreement between the deceased and one Mr. Sunday Enyia a neighbour to the deceased. According to the relative, an elder brother to the deceased pledged some landed property to Mr. Sunday Enyia at the sum of Thirty five thousand (N35,000.00).

But the pledged property has been a source of worry to Mr. Nwachukwu who has approached Mr. Enyia severally to redeem the property, appealing that the piece of property is the only one left for them by their late father.

On the 10th of December, 2008 the deceased came home from his Bonny, Rivers State base and renewed his appeal to Mr. Eqnyia on the same issue but Mr. Enyia vehemently turned down the offer. A verbal disagreement ensued between the deceased and Mr. Enyia.

The source further alleged that Mr. Sunday Enyia approached Eze Onwukwe Dick with the allegation that the deceased invaded his home and robbed him. The source noted that is was on that basis that Eze Onwukwe Dick instructed the vigilante outfit to shoot Mr. Nwachukwu at sight. Mr. Nwachukwu was shot at the security post of the outfit at the outskirt of the community on his way back from Aba. The commercial motorcyclist who was conveying him was lucky to have escaped but not without bullet wounds and his motorcycle was set ablaze.

According to one of the youths in the community who spoke to News World, when it was discovered that Eze Onwukwe Dick allegedly has a hand in the murder because of his stake in the property in contention, which is alleged that he bought over from Mr. Sunday Enyia, a protest was sparked and the angry youths in the community went on rampage destroying property.

Eze Onwukwe Dick in his confession at the Eastern Ngwa Divisional Police command, Umuobiakwa accepted knowledge of the murder but claimed that Mr. Nwachukwu was cut down in a gun duel with the vigilante outfit. He further claimed that the deceased comes in from his base once in a while to rob people of their effects but on this particular incident that he was unlucky as he got wind of his planned activities and had to signal the vigilante outfit who were on the watch out. He also alleged that when the deceased spotted members that he started to fire and in the cross fire by the Vigilante outfit that he was cut down.

But Eze Onwukwe’s claim does not agree with the testimony of the commercial motorcyclist who was conveying Mr. Nwachukwu. According to him, when they were motioned for a stop by the vigilante outfit there were no inquiries from the outfit rather they opened fire on them. He further claimed that he managed to escape into the bush but that Mr. Nwachukwu was unlucky because the bullets caught him in a dangerous spot in the head and that he was later set ablaze.

According to Mazi Onyenso Onyenkwere, an octogenarian in Ngwa land who is knowledgeable in the practice of public execution eof criminals in Ngwa Culture, the murder of Mr. Nwachukwu by members of the vigilante outfit falls short of the practice. According to him, when a criminal is caught or suspected, the first step is an open trial which is to be supervised by the elders of the land. If the said criminals is convicted without doubt, he is sentenced to death. Mazi Onyekwere captured his position this way “the shoddy manner with which the execution was carried smacks of suspicion. There was no public trial and the vigilante members hurriedly disappeared after the execution. This indicates that the action was not based on good motive.

Presently, the Eze and three members of the outfit are cooling off their heels in detention at the state Criminal Investigation Department Umuahia. Two members of the outfit who are alleged of perpetrating the notorious act are at large. The Abia State Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Okechukwu Ali, in a chat with this reporter confirmed Eze Onwukwe’s detention at the state CID and also stated that the Abia Police Command is investigating it.

Also eze Onwukwe Dick is notorious with criminal activities. Few months before the present incident, he was allegedly involved in gun running and partaking in the sharing of N40billion bullion van robbery loot with another prominent traditional ruler in the state Eze I. K. Nwabiaraije Eneogwe.

What is injecting doubt in the minds of members of Obete Umuoha Community is his alleged link with some high-standing politicians in the state which they claim granted him freedom in the previous case. But to guide against this, counsel to the deceased family, Barrister C. C. Emelogu has raised petitions to the Abia Commissioner of Police, Mr. Edgar Nanakumo and Inspector general of Police Mr. Mike Okiro calling for proper investigation of the murder incidence.

For over ten years the traditional ruler has lost favour with his subjects. They were previously engaged in legal battles, which culminated in the planting of a plantain tree by the members of the community. This according to the culture indicates severing the relationship between the people and the Eze.

In one of the petitions raised by the Community, they accused the traditional ruler of embezzlement, high-handedness, secret murder of the youths of the Community which include the alleged murder of the uncle of the deceased, Mr. Chinma Obadiah.
The alleged involvement of the traditional ruler in the murder of Mr. Kelechi Nwachukwu has provoked condemnation even from the civil society Comrade Chidi Nwosu, president of Human Rights Justice and Peace Foundation (HRTPF) Abia State who has previously called for the re-arrest of Eze’s Onwukwe Dick and I. K. Nwabiaraije Eneogwe in a fresh position called on government to review the activities of the traditional rulers.

Comrade Nwosu’s position was based on the recent involvement of a traditional ruler in Ukwa east Local Government in the murder of two police officers, one among them is Inspector Cherechi Charles. :These men cannot continue to go slot free on nefarious activities. It has a big negative impact on their subjects. The custodians of the tradition cannot be violators of such traditions. It is a high contradiction”, Comrade Nwosu noted.

For Mrs. Nwafor nwachukwu a widow and mother of the deceased, what bothers her most is for the justice to prevail in the murder of her breadwinner, Mr. Kelechi Nwachukwu. But the multimillion naira question remains would Eze Onwukwe Dick command the moral courage to supervise affairs in Obete Umuoha Autonomous Community as the traditional ruler?

How Governor Elechi and sons run Ebonyi

Democracy is traditionally defined as government of the people for the people and by the people. But this definition is bunkum to the governor of Ebonyi state, Chief Martin Elechi (picture top left). As far as the over 70 year old Governor Elechi is concerned, this universally accepted definition of democracy, which originated from the ancient Greeks, should go to blazes and burn to ashes. Elechi believes that democratic principles, with all the good attributes, should never apply to the pauperized people of Ebonyi state. No, not at all!

It has become common knowledge that Elechi runs Ebonyi state with only the members of his family. An indigene, in a recent interaction with KlinReports, described Elechi’s governance style as nuclear family system, in which other people, except members of the governor’s family and a few kinsmen, are completely shut out of the governance of the state. That is, Elechi’s perception of democracy is that of government of the people for the Elechis and by the Elechis.

Governor Elechi has been consistently accused of awarding contracts to only himself and members of his immediate family. For instance, he awarded most of the on-going contracts in the state to his company, called MJ Construction Company. This company is solely run by his son, Martin Elechi (Jnr) and his other siblings. Of course, violation of the principles of due process in this kind of contract awards has been glaring, the contracts having been unilaterally cornered by the governor’s family.

And there is a tinge of fraud in Elechi’s contract awards to self. It was learnt that some of the road contracts were actually awarded to Elechi by the immediate past government of Dr. Sam Ominyi Egwu, but he (Elechi) carried on with the job until Egwu left office. But as soon as he emerged governor through the instrumentality of Egwu, Elechi, it was gathered, re-awarded the contracts to his company, and at outrageous terms. Yet, these contracts are moving at a snail speed, and there is no hope that the his company would complete any of them even before he leaves office.

Although Governor Elechi pretends to be saintly in his administration of Ebonyi, findings by KlinReports have proved otherwise. Recently, the Nigerian Army ceded a part of its plot of land, located in Abakiliki capital city, called mammy market, to Ebonyi. In return to this gesture, Elechi’s government promised to build a new market for the army in the state. Of course, the governor has kept this promise, having completed the market project. Any moment from now, Elechi would officially hand it over to the Nigerian Army. But this is not the story.

The story is that Elechi, ignoring due process, gave the market contract to his daughter who is being married in Delta state. Agitated indigenes of the state insist that, apart from the fact that Elechi’s daughter is now an indigene of Delta state by marriage, she did not have the professional know-how to have been awarded the contract in the first instance. But Elechi, like most other Nigerian leaders, is not interested in this balderdash. As far as he is concerned, Ebonyi’s new name is ‘Elechi & Sons’ state.

Award of contracts to self is just an aspect of Elechi’s filth in Ebonyi. Favoritism is, also, another trademark of the septuagenarian governor. It is discovered that all juicy appointments either go to the kinsmen of Elechi or those of his wife, Josephine. For instance, Chief Chris Nwankwo, quite alright, used to be a prominent politician, but went into oblivion overtime. But Elechi, immediately on assumption of office, brought Nwankwo back to political relevance so much so that, at the moment, Nwankwo’s word has become law in the state.

Another instance: Governor Elechi, late last year, sacked workers who participated in partisan politics, but had earlier been given waivers to return to work. But this policy was selectively applied, as Elechi spared some kinsmen and close associates of his. Prominent among this favored group is Professor Chigozie Ogbu, the state’s deputy governor, who had resigned his position as Chief Medical Director in the Federal Medical Center, Abakiliki to participate in the elections. Ogbu and others have remained in service while those who have no ‘Abraham’ as father were hauled out of service.

Immediately Elechi assumed duty as governor in 2007, he sacked permanent secretaries, auditors-general, and accountants-general amongst others because they paid themselves arrears of harmonization, that is, some debts owed them by the state government. But, again, the sack was a one sided exercise because Fidelis Mbam, Secretary to the State Government (SSG), was guilty of the same offence, yet he is allowed to remain in service. Mbam was Chief of Staff as at the time, and he, also, got paid his own arrears of harmonization like the others. Elechi is yet to sack Mbam.

Even among the 115 sacked senior officials of government, Elechi, through the back door, brought back his other kinsmen. For instance, Willy Nkwagu, a relation of the governor’s wife from Izzi, was brought back and appointed a commissioner. And Tony Nwigberi, one of the sacked permanent secretaries, is now back as Chairman, Local Government Service Commission. Nwigberi is from Governor Elechi’s Ikwo community.

Recently, Chief Godwin Ogbaga, clerk of the state House of Assembly, was curiously removed and replaced with a relation of Josephine, the governor’s wife (picture to right). This new clerk now works with an already caged speaker of the state legislature, Barrister Augustine Nwankwoegu.

At present, the scenario in Ebonyi state is like that which existed when the Israelites of the Bible transited from Jeroboam to Rehoboam. Before Rehoboam’s emergence as king, the Israelites complained bitterly about the tyranny of Jeroboam, his father. But Rehoboam turned out a worse ruler. While Jeroboam chastised the Israelites with rod, Rehoboam chastised them with scorpion!

Bringing this analogy down home, Ebonyi people who thought that the previous Sam Egwu government was hard on them, seem to have lost their speech over Elechi’s style of running the government like his personal estate.

Egwu, to an extent, ran an inclusive government, but it is, at the moment, easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one to be given a political appointment without the approval of the Elechis, especially, Elechi (Jnr). It is, indeed, a well known fact that if one is close to Elechi (Jnr), one has seen God as far as perks of office in the state are concerned.

Inquiries made by KlinReports concerning Elechi’s style of governing Ebonyi state were, indeed, rebuffed by his media aides, including Dr. Onyekachi Eni and Abia Onyike, Chief Press Secretary and Special Adviser on Media respectively. As at our publication time several hours after we sent text messages to their mobile telephone handsets, neither Eni nor Onyike could send us a response.

But will Governor Elechi remain the way he is? Or will he run an inclusive, more objective and corruption-free government in the salt state of Ebonyi. KlinReports is watching!

Rumpus in Enugu Radio

Engineer Richard Nnamani, retiring Managing Director of Enugu State Broadcasting Service (ESBS), recently, announced Barrister Emeka Ozoagu, Director of Legal Services of the establishment, as his replacement. Ozoagu, a Grade Level 17 officer, was, equally, secretary of the Board of Management before his elevation.

But Ozoagu’s pre and post appointment era have been dogged by controversies. Dr. Mike Onwuzu, the organization’s Director of News and Current Affairs, is in the vanguard of the opposition against Ozoagu’s appointment. Onwuzu insists that he is the proper person to take over from Nnamani, being the most senior director.

In a petition to the state government, Onwuzu claimed that Nnamani hid under a fallacious circular from the state judiciary to unduly promote Ozoagu to GL 17 last year. The promotion, Onwuzu stated, was targeted at giving Ozoagu undue advantage over him. Onwuzu claimed that he had been Ozoagu’s senior in the establishment for over 20 years before Nnamani illegally promoted him above him. Contending that the so-called circular is restricted to only judicial officers, Onwuzu maintained that it is only the governor of the state that could appoint an officer to a position beyond Level 16. Onwuzu added that GL 17 does not statutorily exist in the scheme of service of the ESBS, as well as other ministries and parastatals of government.
“The so-called circular from the Ministry of Justice has not been implemented in any other establishment except in ESBS. The Daily Star, the Ministry of Education, to mention but a few, have legal officers as directors who are not enjoying salary Grade Level 17”, Onwuzu’s petition stated.

Onwuzu, therefore, called on Chime’s government to discountenance the so-called justice ministry circular, and sustain his seniority in the organization.

Onwuzu seems to have undergone similar humiliations in ESBS in the past. First, previous Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani government in the state, on August 4, 2006, appointed Engineer (Richard) Nnamani managing director far and above Onwuzu who was the most senior director then. Nnamani, Director of Engineering Department, replaced Dr. Marius Ugada, who was, in controversial circumstances, removed from office by Nnamani government. Ugada was appointed in March 2006, only to be booted out of office six months after, that is, September. Ugada, who took over from Charley Nnaji, who was on the saddle for over six years, thus made history as the shortest serving Managing Director of the media outfit.

Funny enough, retiring Nnamani refused to comment on Onwuzu’s petition, saying ‘would not discuss government business in the media’. And this was despite some allegations personal to him, including that he installed Ozoagu to cover his tracks while he was in office.

Chime’s government, reacting to the leadership rumpus in the radio house, said it approved the appointment of Ozoagu as Managing Director based on information and documents brought before it. But with the dusts of controversies being raised by Ozoagu’s appointment, the government may be compelled to revisit its verdict on the matter.

Meanwhile, succession dispute is not all there is to the problems besetting the ‘star station’. Since January last year, the over 100 workers of the organization have enjoyed half salaries, without the slightest hope of receiving other allowances and entitlements. Among the ‘half salaried’ staff is Rockefeller Ossy Ogboso, Chairman of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Enugu state council. Ogboso, a veteran journalist, is on the senior staff list of the Enugu State Broadcasting Service.

The situation in the radio house took a dive for the worse following alleged recruitment of over 60 additional staff by Nnamani’s management, as well as inclusion of about 30 recalled disengaged staff in the pay-roll.

It would be recalled that Governor Chime had, on assumption of office last year, directed the recall of thousands of workers of the state who were, in 1999, disengaged from service by the past administration of Nnamani. The reinstated workers included the 30 ESBS staff.
But the retired Managing Director (Nnamani) stands accused of favoritism in his recruitment exercise. In addition to his own daughter, Uchenna, whom he appointed a legal officer on Grade Level 9, most of the beneficiaries allegedly come from his Amechi-Awkunawnaw, Nkanu West council home.

And critics of Uchenna’s appointment contend that, as a fresh graduate, she ought to have been recruited on Grade Level 8/2 instead of 9/2. This appointment, it is argued, runs contrary to both the civil service rules and scheme of service of ESBS.

The retirees of the organization are, also, not left out in the travails. Incredibly, the pensioners are being owed seventy (70) months pension arrears. Already, the senior citizens have lost count of their members who continue to die out of frustration, hunger and starvation following non-payment of their retirement benefits. KlinReports learned that indebtedness to these pensioners is as high as N70 million!

The problem of ESBS largely stems from insufficient funds for its management. With a monthly subvention of N6 million from the state government, the organization grapples with the difficulty of making up about N9.5 million wage bill every month. Even monthly revenue of about N4 million remains a far cry to the ever soaring needs of the media organ.

Thus ESBS, comprising SunRise 96.1 FM and ETV (Enugu State Television), is presently in a pitiful state. The premises have been taken over by weeds and reptiles as a result of long period of neglect. On several occasions, snakes and dangerous rodents were sighted and killed in the live studio.

While the AM (Amplitude Modulated Band) section remains off air, the TV unit just resumed an unsteady transmission after over three months. The radio, SunRise, which is the only (so to say) functioning unit, is even epileptic.

For instance, the radio starts transmission at 5.30 am and goes on break at 12.30 pm, resumes 2.45 pm and ends transmission at 10.30 pm immediately after network news. This is contrary to what obtains in modern broadcasting. A stable radio station ought to resume transmission at 5.30 am and broadcast without interruption or break till close down at 12 midnight or beyond.

Worse-still, the audio quality of the only functioning radio unit is wooly, and the signal bad. The station manages to operate within Enugu, and hardly gets to the hinterland let alone any of the neighboring states.

In fact, ESBS seems to have entered the Guinness Book of Records by being the only electronic medium, among its contemporaries, that still uses analogue equipment in its operations. Of course, this system of broadcast explains the massive shortfall in the patronage hitherto enjoyed by the station. KlinReports was informed that some advertisers who had paid in huge sums of money for slots in the television section of the organization are, at the moment, demanding a refund of their money.

Indeed, the history of ESBS is that of the goose that lays the golden eggs. Former Governor Nnamani had generously used the station for his campaigns. But on getting elected as governor, Nnamani, now a senator, abandoned the station for eight years he reigned, and built for himself an ultra-modern Cosmo 105.5 FM, also located in Enugu. ESBS, from that point, became a sick baby that never recovered.

For now, Governor Chime is not accused of being behind the problems of the organization, the workers think that he (Chime) is the only governor that bring smiles back to their woebegone faces. And findings by KlinReports have shown that Chime is on the verge of fixing the ESBS seeming intractable problems. There are indications that, soon, the reactivation of the radio house, founded in early 1980s by the government of Chief Jim Ifeanyichukwu Nwobodo in old Anambra state, would commence in earnest.

The anguished ESBS staff cannot wait to experience this new lease of life!

Ebonyi Kliller Shrine: My story

Chief Pius Okoh, proprietor of the famous Holy Ghost secondary School in Abakiliki, capital of Ebonyi state- remember him? Okoh is, equally, the proprietor of the newly established Holy Ghost University, also, located in the state. KlinReports recently did an expose on the discovery of a killer shrine in Ebonyi state, in which Okoh was reported as a kingpin. Indeed, Okoh (in the picture top left)is wearing a black native dress, and welds a long cutlass.

Part of our report had it that this shrine is an evil temple dedicated to initiation, settling scores for members, and offering human souls for the purpose of progress, victory and money making to mention but a few. KlinReports, also, gathered the membership of this shrine is largely drawn from the high and mighty in the state, including Okoh, a one time Nigerian minister of Ebonyi extraction among others.

The lid, it was learnt, was blown off Okoh’s membership of the deadly occult gang by his colleagues because he allegedly refused to provide a human soul, as prescribed to him by authorities of the killer shrine, for a ritual exercise.

KlinReports had promised to push our inquiries further into the existence/operations of this alleged killer shrine, with a view to enriching the story for the benefit of numerous visitors to our news website.

Thus on Tuesday January 6, we had an encounter with Chief Okoh in his private school premises in Abakiliki. Okoh vehemently debunked the story, maintaining that he is a victim of blackmail by an armed gang that abducted him from his school premises in August last year. The gang, subsequently, demanded a N20 million ransom from him. According to Okoh, the blackmailers made good their threat that they would destroy his hard earned reputation and legacy by publishing that he belongs to such a killer shrine. Below is an excerpt of Okoh’s side of the story for your perusal:

‘KIDNAP ATTEMPT AND THREAT TO MY LIFE AND MY ENTIRE FAMILY

At about 12.45 pm of Wednesday, 27 August, 2008, two men, dark in complexion, averaged 40 years, drove into my school and demanded to see me privately in my office. Reaching my office, they discharged my secretary, Miss Christiana Okafor, and my two vice principals, Chief Udu Gabriel and Mrs Amadi Mary, as well as our school printer, Mr. Uro-Chukwu Kingsley.

One of them with a deformed (artificial) left leg flashed a police identity card on me and said he was a Police Inspector from Alagbon (Lagos) and was sent for my arrest dead or alive. Under gun point, he immediately disarmed me of my school two mobile handsets and a third one being my own phone.

I demanded to know my offence but they said I would be told when we got to Police Headquarters, Abakiliki. They whisked me into a one door ash colored Honda Accord car, with Registration Number AJ 353 KJA. A third man with them was seen seated at the back of the car watching me closely. They drove past the police headquarters without entering there. When I questioned they said they were going to search my house. Reaching my house, they matched me straight to my bedroom and ordered me, under gun-point, to get my cheque booklet. I obeyed and was whisked back to their Honda car (well tinted), restricting me from having contact with any member of my house-hold, just as they did in the school.

Driving out from my house at No. 3A Nwele Street, Abakiliki, they noticed that one of the persons they met in my office (our printer, an albino) was following their car. They stopped and threatened shooting or taking him along to Alagbon. I asked the printer to go, that I’ll be alright.

From there, they headed straight to Presco Junction (in Abakiliki town). I repeatedly protested where we were going without an answer, but later they repeated it was Alagbon. Getting to the former mobile filling station (now Pet-Pat) along Enugu-Abakiliki highway, they noticed that our printer (who hired an Okada operator) was still following them. They wanted to shoot him but for my struggle with the fake policeman. They then hand-cuffed me, tied my eyes strongly with a piece of cloth while zooming off with an abnormal speed.

After about 40 minutes drive they went into a track road and later stopped after a distance drive. They led me into an unknown village where we met two other average men (one short and fair, and the other short, slim and dark).

It was there and then that they demanded N20 million from me or they would take my life. “I have no such money”, I replied.


They took me into a second small room where they laid one fair man whose face and chest were covered with a white cloth. The second person who came with the claimed inspector, then flashed an I.D card and said that he was a press man with the Punch newspaper (different from what he earlier told my secretary-Pund Newspaper when questioned of the camera he was carrying).

They brought out a camera and video, and under gun point forced me to hold the legs of the fair man lying on the floor while they took photographs. The five of them surrounded me with the short fair man we met there, carrying a big matchet. They again demanded N20 million or they would kill me and that, in the alternative, they would destroy me and my school by publishing newspaper headlines with their photographs.

At this point, I guess that I had been hypnotized. The experience was like a dream. All I was hearing were instructions from them like, ‘Stand Here’, ‘Hold this Knife’, ‘Look Up’’ and all that. In fact, it was like a trance. When I regained consciousness, I had no other wiser choice than to accept to pay the N20 million ransom, even when I did not know where, when and how to raise such money. They tied my eyes back and led me to the Honda car and drove off.

When they untied me, I discovered that we were between Ukwuachi and Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) (near Abakiliki) along the high way. They asked for a hotel where we were to go. I preferred my house but they refused. I then pleaded for my handset so that I could reach out to a friend whom I was sure would assist me raise money. I could not get the line hence they accepted we drove straight to the friend (Sir Goddy Nwosu-proprietor, Godal Pharmacy). Luckily, we met him trying to drive out at about 4 pm. I went to him while the claimed police inspector closed up on me. I could not raise alarm because they could shoot and disappear, and or get to my house for more harm.

Sir Goddy Nwosu had no such money for me as he said that he had just bought a house at Kpirikpiri in Abakiliki the past week. I lamented that he might not see me again if I left him without any money. He was helpless hence he watched us enter the car and drive off.

They asked what next. I suggested going to my GTB bank manager in Abakiliki. I entered without their usual follow up. Before reaching the bank, they mistakenly allowed me to pick a call from my wife who was already with my son searching for my whereabouts. Fifteen minutes later, they (my wife and son) arrived the bank, questioned about the Honda car that whisked me away.

To my surprise, they (my abductors) were nowhere to be found. On enquiry, the police men on duty at the bank reported that in less than seven minutes of my entry into the bank, the car in question revised and zoomed off and had not returned.

With the help of one police officer (Mr. Chidi Mischark) of the state Criminal Investigation Bureau (C.I.B), we searched to the school, my residence and back to the GTB for a trace of these kidnappers cum armed bandits with their car and even got the assistance of the surveillance team for that night, combing all hotels in the city but all to no avail.’

So long a long story! You would say, but the story of ‘Ebonyi Killer Shrine’ might just have begun with this seeming winding defense of the prominent school proprietor.

KlinReports, as it were, observed some grey areas in Okoh’s story. First, why did it have to take him four long months to come out with the story of his encounter with the so-called kidnappers and blackmailers? But Okoh explained that he promptly reported his ordeals to the police, and did not see any reason to have gone to town with his story, since it was under police investigation.

Indeed, Okoh made available a copy of a petition, dated 28 August, 2008, he sent to Ebonyi state Police Commissioner narrating his ordeals in the hands of his captors, and requesting police protection of himself and members of his hold. Okoh, also, did an update on the petition to the police commissioner on 6 January, 2009.

Again, it is curious that Okoh could not aptly give a description of the shrine the alleged kidnappers took him to. Even if they had tied his eyes, there was a time when they removed the cloth. It is, also, amazing that the kidnappers, who ought to be experts in their chosen p ‘profession’ would just follow Okoh around the town, including a bank of all places, just for him to get the ransom to be given to them. This, as we can see, runs counter to the normal tactic of Nigerian kidnappers who strictly hold their captive (s) hostage until ransom is brought to them wherever they dictate.

Many questions than answers in Okoh’s tales of blackmail, but one thing is obvious: between Okoh and his alleged kidnappers cum blackmailers, one is being economical with the truth. But it is hoped that the truth will, somehow, be told one day.

We in KlinReports are still digging!

So, who wants Mbadinuju dead?

There is no gainsaying the fact that Chinwoke Clement Mbadinuju (PhD) is a Nigerian of no mean status. Apart from being a legal luminary, Dr. Mbadinuju (Odera) had, also, in his hey days, distinguished himself in the journalism profession. He even rose to the level of Managing Director of the Star Printing and Publishing Company (SPPC), Enugu, publishers of the famous Star group of newspapers then,between late 1970s and 80s. A political maestro of sorts, Odera was to hit the top when, amidst stiff competition in 1999, he emerged executive governor of Anambra state.

But recently, Nigerian newspapers were awash with reports of suspected plans to eliminate this prominent Nigerian. According to the reports, on Saturday January 3 this New Year, 2009, Mbadinuju’s Uli, Ihiala council home was invaded by unknown persons. Mbadinuju himself told reporters that the invaders alighted from their car ‘looking strange, fierce and nervous’.

He said the strange men were stopped by his security personnel at the gate, and subjected to some questioning, with a view to ascertaining their mission. The men reportedly claimed to have been sent to Mbadinuju by the comptroller General of Nigerian Customs.

But the mission of these invaders turned suspicious as they could neither provide the name of the comptroller general or that of the former governor he (the comptroller general) had sent them to.

Narrated Mbadinuju: "While they were disputing with the security boys, word reached armed policemen in the compound who quickly swooped on them at the security post to answer more questions. But they quickly rushed into their car and drove off".

This plot to assassinate former Governor Mbadinuju is, to say the least in the mildest way, very unfortunate. For whatever reason/s, extrajudicial killing is never contemplated by the Nigerian constitution, and should never be resorted to in the settlement of scores of any kind. Assuming Mbadinuju had stepped on anyone’s toes, it would be heinous enough to sponsor his killing. Were it not for the alertness of the security team at the entrance gate to his mansion, maybe, Odera would have, by now, made the list as one of the prominent Nigerians that have fallen victim to assassination.

The situation would have been so heart-rending because it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for Mbadinuju’s killers to have been nabbed and prosecuted successfully by the police. Mbadinuju told KlinReports that he had reported the incident to the police; unfortunately, it is on record that the Nigerian police have never successfully prosecuted any murder case, including the high profile ones. Not even a single one!

Mbadinuju’s experience exposes the hopeless security situation in Nigeria. It, also, shows that Nigeria is a country created for the comfort of only the privileged minority. Mbadinuju is alive to tell his story because he has been able to purchase security, ostensibly at a huge cost, for himself and members of his family. What about the majority others out there in the shanties and ghettos of Nigeria who cannot must as much to have police orderlies?

We do not intend to run commentaries on those Mbadinuju could be suspecting their involvement in the plot to eliminate him since the matter is already in the domain of the police. All in all, while KlinReports commiserates with Mbadinuju over his lucky escape, we reiterate the need for the Nigerian government to provide the citizenry with adequate security, and minimum comfort. Nigerians deserve no less than this!

Anambra squanders N140 billion council funds- CLO

The manner in which over N140 billion sent to 21 local government areas of Anambra state from the federal account from 1999 till date was expended has continued to generate ripples in the state and beyond.

This whopping sum came into the councils during the administrations of Dr. Chinwoke Mbadinuju, Dr. Chris Ngige, Dr. Andy Uba and incumbent Mr. Peter Obi as governors of the state. Mrs. Virginia Etiaba, deputy governor of the state, also, briefly served as acting governor when Obi was removed from office through impeachment by the state legislature.

Following outcries in some quarters concerning alleged misappropriation of the funds, the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO), a Non-Governmental Organization in Nigeria, calls on Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s government to launch a full scale inquiry into the expenditure of the allocations. The group alleges that about N50 billion of the total sum had been lodged into private coffers in the last nine years.

In particular, Alloysius Attah, chairman of CLO, Anambra state chapter, while making the allegations, says: "From our findings through the published statement of disbursement by Federal Ministry of Finance, between June and December 2007 only, the 21 local governments in the state got over N10 billion from the federation account. We call on the government of Anambra State to render account of over N140 billion believed to have accrued into the account of the 21 local governments between June 1999 and December 2008”.

Attah urges Peter Obi government to, meanwhile, as a matter of urgency, conduct elections into the councils and various markets in the state. Attah contends that there are suspicions that the delay in the conduct of the council polls has been deliberate for Obi government to continue to enjoy the councils’ financial allocations to the detriment of the citizenry of the state.

The rights group, further, laments the non-conduct of local government elections in Anambra state, maintaining that it is a slap on the constitution of Nigeria.
"According to Section 8 of the 1999 constitution, states are under obligation to ensure the existence of local governments. Since the short-lived local government structure under former Governor Chinwoke Mbadinuju (between 1999 to 2002), local governments in this state have been under the caretaker arrangement. We suspect a grand design by successive administrations to make local governments here mere appendages to the state government so as to siphon money through that way", Attah argues.

KlinReports recalls that Anambra state House of Assembly had, in a unanimous resolution recently, directed the state government to release funds for the conduct of local government poll in the state, noting that the level of infrastructure decay at the council level has been very alarming. The Assembly, also, directed the state’s Independent Electoral Commission to immediately conduct the election once funds are made available to it.

While the commission chairman, Chief Cornel Umeh, promises to conduct elections into the councils on the release of funds, Valentine Obienyem and Maja Umeh, Governor Obi’s media assistant and political adviser respectively insist that the directive is not biding on government. Obienyem and Umeh contend that the security situation in the state and civil unrest that trailed a similar council election in Plateau state might repeat itself if the election is conducted immediately in the state.

KlinReports, however, reached out to some of the former Governors, including Mbadinuju, Uba and Obi respectively for their reactions to CLO’s allegation of misappropriation of the state’s council funds. Ex-Governors Mbadinuju, Obi and Uba, through their media aides, of course, waved the council funds misappropriation accusation aside as a blatant lie.

Thus Obi’s government, through Mike Udah, Chief Press Secretary, had this to say in defense: “Governor Obi has not misappropriated a dime. He is not corrupt. His prudence in spending and fiscal discipline is part of the reason the European Union (EU) and other international organizations have continued to work with him”.
On his own part, former Governor Andy Uba, who spent only sixteen days in office, through Chuks Akunna, his media adviser, chided CLO over the allegation, maintaining that no state in Nigeria is known to have received close to the talked about N140 billion apart from Rivers state.

“Pray, how could Andy have whacked such non-existent money in two weeks? Haba!” Akunna retorted.

But denying the allegation, Mbadinuju wondered how such an idle talk would be coming up against his administration eleven years after he vacated office.

“I have been investigated for fraud and financial irregularities and was absolved”, Mbadinuju blurted.

Mbadinuju, in particular, was livid with KlinReports concerning our interest in this story, saying: “So this is your way of wishing your brothers a good new year with this rubbish allegation. If I committed offence since 1999 you allowed eleven years before asking of it. Why are you fronting for CLO or you want to repeat what you people did to me over Igwes’ murder because my lawyers have not yet served you with libel papers. I have been denied appointments because of your publishing false petitions against me and you are at it again. Are Igbo governors the only ones in this country? Why do you hate yourselves so much? Please don’t let me be angry with you”.

Odera added: “If you people don’t want me to rest this year God will set up a stumbling block for you”.
However, KlinReports efforts to get in touch with the duo of Ngige and Etiaba were fruitless.

Editor’s Note: We’ll like to assure His Excellency, Dr. Chinwoke Mbadinuju (Odera), that we have a lot of respect for him, and do not hold him in contempt as he tends to believe. We recall that this is the second time Odera is berating us over stories on him. As he rightly pointed out, he was angry with KlinReports’ sustained interest in the dastard murder, in September 0f 2002, of the Igwes. This couple (both lawyers) was assassinated while Mbadinuju was governor under very suspicious circumstances. And KlinReports has evidently been in the vanguard of the crusade for justice in their case.

Let us, once more, assure the former governor that we have no ill-feelings, neither are we being sponsored by anybody or group against him. We are in this internet publishing to excite issues for the advancement of our society, and Mbadinuju must excuse us that. It is advisable that Mbadinuju should keep an open mind with us in KlinReports.com, for neither are we politicians nor indigenes of Anambra state, as to be engaged in supremacy battle with him.

If Mbadinuju was denied any political appointment, we hasten to add that we were not part of the reason. Publishing petitions authored by persons well known to Mbadinuju himself would not have robbed him of any political post because we were not writing Bible. It has to be noted that in spite of seemingly sponsored negative reports against former Governors Sam Egwu and Achike Udenwa of Ebonyi and Imo states respectively, Yar’Adua’s government still went ahead to give them ministerial appointments. Even at that, appropriate agencies ought to have investigated the veracity of our publications or otherwise before government took a decision on the matter. Were Odera innocent of the charges as contained in our reports, why wasn’t he given a clean bill by appropriate agencies, like the State Security Service (SSS), whose duty it is to give security reports on prospective political appointees?

Mbadinuju threatened legal actions against KlinReports. But this threat is neither here nor there, for that will not stop us from fearlessly discharging our social responsibility to our people, who have been under the jackboots of bourgeoisie welfarists like Mbadinuju for donkey years. We are sure we have not committed any form of libel, and or defamation against former Governor Mbadinuju.

For now, KlinReports wishes our dear Odera Longer life, prosperity and good health this year of our LORD, 2009.
Editor.