Impeached Enugu Dep. Gov. Describes Redeployment To Civil Service Inimical

Posted by African Examiner Latest Headlines, News, News From The State, Politics Saturday, September 6th, 2014

Ignatius Okpara, Enugu

Impeached Deputy Governor of Enugu State, Chief Sunday Onyebuchi, has described his redeployment to the State Civil Service by Governor Sullivan Chime, as a deliberate plot to rubbish and attack his personality.

Impeached Deputy Governor, Sunday Onyebuchi

Onyebuchi, who was sacked fortnight ago, confirmed that a letter of redeployment was delivered to his residence last Tuesday, asking him to resume at the office of the Secretary to the State Government, (SSG) as a Deputy Director.

The letter Onyebuchi revealed also directed him to handover to the new Deputy Governor, Ralph Nwoye, on or before Monday, September 8, 2014.

While addressing newsmen in Enugu Friday, Onyebuchi, described the redeployment as a huge joke.

According to him, if those behind it had consulted their records, they would have known that he had formally resigned from the civil service before he contested the governorship election along with Governor Sullivan Chime in 2007.

“When I got the information, I felt it was a joke or something just intended to insult and humiliate me. I can’t imagine what they intend to achieve by this.

” After serving as a deputy governor for seven years and three months, I will go back to office as a civil servant on Level 15.

“I know they have not forgotten that I left the civil service as Permanent Secretary before I became commissioner.

“While I was serving as a commissioner, I took a leave of absence that enabled me serve out of my appointment…Preparatory to my nomination to run for election as deputy governor in 2007, I formally disengaged from the State Public Service both as civil servant and as a commissioner and that is what made me eligible to contest election because it is known that you cannot contest election while holding a public office in Nigeria.

“We all know that you cannot ask for leave of absence to join a political party and you can also not ask for a leave of absence to contest election because to contest election you must belong to a political party.

“So, I never applied for a leave of absence to contest election as a Deputy Governor because that will be against the law” explained Onyebuchi.

On whether he ever applied for reinstatement, Onyebuchi said, “Having left office as a deputy governor, I never applied to anybody for a reinstatement as a civil servant because I have disengaged from the civil service”.

“They tend to forget that if I did not resign before my nomination, that means that my name was still in the nominal roll of the civil service and that will also mean that I was not qualified to contest the election.

“But they are aware that I contested election in 2007 and also contested in 2011 and if I was still a civil servant, either on leave of absence or in whatever capacity, it means that the ticket and the platform under which I contested with my boss, the governor, was faulty and invalid but I do not believe it was so because the opposition and those who lost the election would have used it as basis to appeal against our election.

“So it is very clear that the report of my posting or redeployment is either a joke or something intended to make mischief, either by a way of insult or humiliation”, he stated.