TheCable

The Enugu State house of assembly has commenced impeachment proceedings against the deputy governor, Chief Sunday Onyebuchi.

Onyebuchi is to be impeached for alleged “gross misconduct”, but government insiders said it was to settle political scores between Governor Sullivan Chime, and his political rivals ahead of the 2015 elections.

Chime has been in a no-love-lost relationship with his predecessor, Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani, who helped him and Onyebuchi to power in 2007.

Chime is also not on good terms with Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, reportedly because he wants to go to the senate in 2015 and both of them are from the same Enugu west senatorial district.

“Onyebuchi maintains a good relationship with both Nnamani and Ekweremadu and Chime is not comfortable with this at all. He believes Onyebuchi could be leaking his strategies to his opponents,” a government official told TheCable on Tuesday.

At the sitting of the assembly on Monday, the clerk was directed to serve the deputy governor with a notice of impeachment, and the speaker, Eugene Odoh, accepted the noticewhich was signed by 22 members of the house.

Two members declined to sign the notice which the house leader, Udeh Okoye, sponsored.

There has been a wave of impeachment in the country lately.

Governor of Adamawa state, Murtala Nyako, was impeached two weeks ago, and proceedings against the governor of Nasarawa, Umaru Tanko Al-Makura, are ongoing.

Also, on Monday the speaker of Ebonyi State house of assembly, Chukwuma Nwazunka, was impeached.