Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu has turned down a Lexus Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) presented to him by the Ebonyi State Governor, Chief David Umahi, as an elder statesman of the state.
Onu, who governed Abia State between 1992 and 1993, from where Ebonyi was carved out in 1996, urged the governor, to pay him his pension entitlements, instead.
The minister in a letter referenced HMST/FMST/036/Vol.IV/595 dated August 16, 2016, entitled: “Re-state recognition for an elder statesman”, and addressed to the governor, Onu regretted that the Ebonyi State House of Assembly in 2011 amended a law, specifically, to redefine the word ‘governor’, as contained in its earlier enactment of 2007, just to exclude him from his constitutional benefit.
The former Abia governor thanked Ebonyi governor for the warm sentiments conveyed in the letter extolling his contributions to the creation of the 20-year-old state, and promised to do more more.
However, he wrote in his letter: “I regret to inform Your Excellency that I cannot accept the gift of a Lexus Sport Utility Vehicle as conveyed in the letter under reference. I do so with a deep sense of responsibility and conscious of the important need to build a better Ebonyi State where respect for the rule of law and the peoples’ will as well as the pursuit of their happiness will remain sacred.”
Onu noted that it was in line with the provisions of Section 124(5) of the 1999 Constitution (as Amended) that the state Assembly in 2007 enacted a law titled the “Ebonyi State Specified Offices And Related Matters Law, 2007”, “Section 3,” which defined a governor as “a civilian governor of or from Ebonyi State of Nigeria.
“Rather curiously, four years later, the same House of Assembly enacted the “Ebonyi State Specified Offices Pensions and Related Matters (Amendement) Law 2011” wherein a governor was defined as: “a civilian governor of Ebonyi State of Nigeria.
“It is clear from the foregoing, Your Excellency, that I was the target of this scheme in an apparent design to deny me my due pension entitlements. This is especially so in the circumstance where it is the responsibility of the Ebonyi State Government to do so as a consequence of the sharing of assets and liabilities between Abia and Ebonyi states.
“You will recall that I had served as the first elected governor of Abia State, in which a part later became a constituent part of Ebonyi State.”
He, therefore, implored Governor Umahi to initiate steps aimed at addressing and correcting the contradictions in the overall interest of fairness, justice and respect for the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“Laws are not made to suit personal prejudices. Laws are made to serve the enduring attributes of good conscience, honour and equity,” Onu concluded.
