Enugu Impeachment Crisis: Gov. Chime, Enugu Police Plans To Kill Me Says Enugu Speaker

Enugu State House of Assembly Speaker, Mr. Eugene Odo has raised alarm over plot by the Enugu State Governor, Sullivan Chime and the Enugu State Police Command to detain him on an alleged forgery of the state’s N12 billion Supplementary Budget for year 2012.

Speaking with journalists yesterday in Enugu state, Odo;  “I wish to bring to your notice that till this morning, the Commissioner of Police has not obeyed the order, instead, in the evening of yesterday (Wednesday), the Commissioner of Police through his office invited me on account of a petition allegedly written by the Governor. According to them, the petition was highlighting issues that we raised in the impeachment notice.

“I want to state clearly that the issue of impeachment notice is a legislative matter and ought not to be taken over by the police. I had earlier told you that my personal life and that of my family are  in the hands of the governor of Enugu state and Commissioner of police Enugu state”.

“I suspect a situation as he is inviting us presently, where we may be detained and poisoned in the state command of Enugu State Police Command. We want to bring this to the attention of the Pubic with a view to asking the Inspector General of Police to intervene.

“This is the first time I am seeing court order being  flagrantly flouted, this is the first time legislative duties is about to be carried to the police station. Matters for which we were invited were matters of legislature and the least we expect is to whom impeachment notice had been served (the governor) to make responses if he has any to the House of Assembly, not for the police to come and take over the functions of the House of Assembly.

“The same items raised by the House are why the Police are inviting me, Ray Nnaji and some other members of the House, with a view to detaining us and if possible poisoning us.  We hope that the good people of Enugu state will certainly not allow this.

“The House of Assembly should be allowed to do its job. One should expect that the police should obey the court order that has been served on them. If you move around the House of Assembly, you will still see the presence of the police.

“What we are suspecting at the moment is not favourable to my personal liberty as an individual which is contrary to the court order. For now it appears that the police is so much descending in the arena of conflict between the executive and legislature and I want to appeal to them to restrict themselves to their duties and not take over the functions of the House.

“If an impeachment notice is served, how did the Police raise items there and begin to quiz the members. It is wrong.

“We call on Inspector of General of Police to call the Commissioner of Police to order. He has so much shown enough interest in this matter.  He could as well declare himself a party to this matter so that the people will know the angle he is coming from”.

Meanwhile, Barrister Ray Nnaji also commenting on the said matter said;  “Instead of Governor Chime responding to my petition before the EFCC he decided to petition the police to circumvent and divert attention from the issues raised in my petition.

“I enquired from the Speaker and was told that it was Chime that wrote the petition through the State Attorney General. I have demanded that the police should give me a written invitation but the OC D5 State CID Enugu who called me said that the phone call should be regarded as formal invitation.

“But if they fail to issue the written invitation before Monday, May 18, I might decide not to honour the invitation because I don’t really know their motive. However, I am not against the police conducting invitation but their intention is to hound me into police detention and possibly poison me.”