Enugu Deputy Gov Fights Back

In a statement issued in Enugu yesterday, he said that the action of the officials, who stormed his house on Monday, was intended to humiliate him and show how “politically impotent” he was.

Speaking on the evacuation of the 3,000 birds from his official residence and the statement by Governor Sullivan Chime’s Press Secretary, Mr. Chukwudi Achife on Monday claiming that the poultry constituted a health hazard to people working in the Government House, Onyebuchi said those behind the act were hiding their actual motive.

He said that he was surprised that the statement from the government did not mention the alleged violation of the purpose clause in the Certificate of Occupancy for the Deputy Governor’s lodge, as claimed in the two letters earlier sent to him by the government.

He stated; “Violation of Purpose Clause, which they claimed was the basis for their action, was not mentioned in the press statement.  The two letters, which alleged violation of purpose clause of the C of O of the premises, was dropped in the statement issued from the governor’s office on Monday.

“In the two letters they wrote to me on December 24 and 27, 2013, which I replied, they made mention of the environmental or health hazard emanating from the poultry.  In their press statement, they claimed that they wrote me and asked me to clean up the place and I refused.  So let them produce a letter asking me to do that.  It is not true.”

Recalling what he wrote in his reply to the letter, the deputy governor said: “I told them that the poultry area was designated agriculture unit and I want them to deny that the structure had been used as poultry before I became deputy governor.

“Let them also deny that I have not operated the poultry since 2008.  And that is why I put in my Asset Declaration at the end of my first term in office and at the beginning of the current term that I have operated the same poultry and this was verified by the Code of Conduct Bureau. How suddenly my poultry became a health hazard when it has been in existence since 2008.

“Let them also deny that there is no bigger poultry, piggery and cattle ranch in the governor’s lodge. My poultry was properly run and cleaned because it was run with the technical support from Enugu State Ministry of Agriculture, but they want to justify an evil and wicked deed by feeding the public with falsehood.

“If they succeed in deceiving the public, they can never deceive God. As I am talking to you now, the over 3,000 birds were confiscated from the poultry yesterday and their whereabouts is not known to me.”