By Livinus Nweke

A witty political godfather exerts immeasurable influences and compels irresistible obedience from his helpless beneficiaries. Such unbending manipulation played out during the events that led to the  impeachment of Mr. Sunday Onyebuchi, the erstwhile deputy governor of Enugu State.

Mouths are still aghast as to how Onyebuchi ignored  wise counsel and chose the inglorious path charted by people who wanted to use him to test the viability of their political strength. As it has now turned out, it was a worthless gamble.

Now stripped bare of the power and protection that his former office guaranteed, the impeached deputy governor now faces the cruel realities of life outside. And no one captured what happened in graphic details than Senator Ken Nnamani, a former president of the Senate.

In an interview he granted a a Newspaper, Nnamani said: “Those who advised him to fight on are the ones he should hold responsible for his impeachment because he had the opportunity of resigning… but some people encouraged him to go on and gave him lawyers. If he has now been impeached, it is unfortunate, that is what he brought on himself.”

It was Senator Ike Ekweremadu’s legal team that defended the ousted deputy governor. It is also common knowledge in Enugu that the deputy president of the Senate also tried to pull weak strings that ended woefully.

Sunday Onyebuchi

From the onset of the crisis that led to the tragic end of Onyebuchi’s days as the number two citizen, Ekweremadu made no secret of his active involvement including, as Senator Nnamani rightly put it, asking his legal team and other professional associates to defend the then deputy governor. The federal legislator deluded the naïve Onyebuchi into believing that he would get the House members to leave him unscathed.

At the Enugu State House of Assembly, it was only Mathias Ekweremadu, a brother to the deputy president of the Senate who, out of the 24-member legislature, did not sign the impeachment letter.

But as Frank McKinney Hubbard, an American humorist put it, “the safest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it in your pocket.” That was the cunning game played by  Ekweremadu and his associates because even though the expected result was predictable, the impeached deputy governor’s sponsors created the tragic illusion that beclouded his sense of reality.

It continues to surprise many observers why Onyebuchi ignored the common advice of notable politicians from Enugu who asked him to resign rather than wait to be impeached. This was at the meeting of the state caucus of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which met on July 26. Those who offered such advice included  Nnamani, Fide Okoro, Ben-Collins Ndu and Dubem Onyia.

Aware of the agenda of the caucus meeting , held in Enugu, it was quite instructive that Ekweremadu was the only National Assembly member from the state who did not attend. And rather than lead Onyebuchi to the escape route that had been flung open, his sponsor’s messiah complex drove him to urge the former to press the self-destruct button, all to massage his giant-size ego.

The last, certainly, has not been heard of the intrigues that played out during the impeachment of  Onyebuchi by the state House of Assembly over allegations of gross misconduct.

But it was wicked to have encouraged him not to embrace the advice of more experienced power players just because someone wanted to use his case to trumpet his self-imposed importance that lacks substance and followership. Perhaps, if Ekweremadu wanted to use the Onyebuchi impeachment saga as a dress rehearsal for his own opposition against his party’s decision that frowns on perpetuation in office, then the imminence of his own fate is quite visible.

•Nweke is resident in Enugu.