By Charles Igbo
In his first major interview with a national daily since his historic victory in the Courts over his illegal impeachment, former Imo State Deputy Governor, Sir Jude Agbaso, has told the story of the travails he went through. He also named those who were behind his inexplicable impeachment not quite two years after he and then Governor Rochas Okorocha were sworn into office.
Aside from Okorocha and the then Speaker of the House of Assembly, the now late Ben Uwajimogu, one of main drivers of the impeachment was Okorocha’s wife, Nkechi, a woman who, ordinarily, would have had no business poking her nose in the illegal process, or the administration of the State.
Recall that Agbaso was impeached over a false allegation of taking bribe to the tune of over N400m from a company, J-Pros.
In an interview with the Sunday Punch of April 4, Agbaso said one of the most troubling times he had at the time was the Governor calling him to try to, at once, blackmail and cajole him into accepting guilt for a crime he, Agbaso, did not commit. According to him, Okorocha called him and asked him to accept that he took the bribe to enable him halt the impeachment process. Agbaso refused.
Yet, Okorocha deceived him, and said he knew nothing about the (false) allegations which led to his impeachment.
When Agbaso first heard rumours of the plot to impeach him, he said he did not take it seriously. Even when he noticed that Okorocha was sending people to sniff around the Ministry of Works which he supervised, he was not worrried. He said his books were impeccable.
But one day, out of the blues, it burst.
Agbaso: “Okorocha is a master of deception. The rumour got to a crescendo that he had engineered my impeachment, and he was on his way to Kosovo.
“I called him, and he swore he had nothing to do with it. I challenged him to come back and call it off, and he came back to Imo the next day. But he had set up people against me. Many stakeholders came to listen to him. He told them that if I would just admit wrong dealings, he would go into the bedroom, and together, we would come out settled. But I said no. I had no skeletons in my cupboard.”
Agbaso, also, identified his successor in office after his impeachment, Prince Eze Madumere, as the person who liased with the late Uwajimogu (Speaker of the Imo House of Assembly at the time), Simeon Iwunze, Senator Samuel Anyanwu, Jude Ejiogu, and Okorocha’s wife, Nkechi, to remove him from office.
Perhaps, it was fate, but all those named by Agbaso as engineering his ouster, did not end up well with Okorocha, or get the satisfaction for which he was impeached.
Uwajimogu fell out with Okorocha, and was one of those instrumental to denying his son-in-law, Uche Nwosu, the APC Governorship ticket.
In Madumere’s case, he suffered the same fate as Agbaso. He was, also, treated very badly in office and was impeached.
Jude Ejiogu was sacked with ignominy as the SSG, and Anyanwu did not return to the Senate.
Okorocha’s wife did not have the satisfaction of being the First Lady’s mother, after being a First Lady herself – the reason Agbaso’s impeachment was engineered. Nor did her husband have the satisfaction of continuing in office for a third term through his son-in-law, Nwosu.
Yet, in all of Agbaso’s travails in the hands of Okorocha, the ex-Governor is still owing Agbaso snr, Chief Martin Agbaso, one of the backs, under APGA, on which he climbed to become a Governor.
Said Agbaso, ex-Deputy Governor, “Funnily enough, Okorocha still owes my elder brother N7.2 million.”
Okorocha is now the Senator, representing Imo West, and has a vaulting ambition of running for the President in 2023.
In his State, Imo, where he once bestrode as a colossus, Okorocha is embattled on all fronts.
The Imo State Government is stripping him and and members of his family of all the alleged looting of the people’s patrimony during his governorship of the State.
Recently, an Imo State High Court declared Agbaso’s impeachment null, void, and of no effect. It is expected, according to the terms of settlement, that all his entitlements will be paid to him.
