Ogbonaya Onu rejects N29 million exotic car gift from Governor Umahi

Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu has rejected a Lexus Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) given to him by the Ebonyi State Governor, Chief David Umahi, as an elder statesman of the state.

Mr. Onu is the second personality after the immediate past governor, chief martin Elechi to reject exotic car gifts which cost N29 million each distributed to former Governors Sam Egwu and Martin Elechi and erstwhile Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Anyim Pius Anyim. A total of which stand at N116 million.

The minister, in a letter  dated August 16, 2016, entitled: “Re-state recognition for an elder statesman”instead asked the governor to pay him his pension entitlements, rather than car gift.

Citing copiously from the constitution, Mr. Onu ‎regretted the fact that the Ebonyi State House of Assembly in 2011 amended a law  just to technically exclude him from his constitutional benefit as a former governor of old Abia State.

he said,

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.”
It is important that I draw your attention to provision of Section 124(5) of the 1999 constitution as amended which states that:

Provisions may be made a law of a House of Assembly for the provision of person to or in respect of a person who has held the office of a governor or deputy governor and was not removed from office as a result of impeachment and any pension granted by virtue of any provision made in pursuance of the subsection shall be a charge upon the consolidated revenue fund of the state.”
 “Instructively, a law enacted by the Ebonyi State House of Assembly titled: Ebonyi State Special Offices Pensions and Related Matters Law 2007, section 3 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.
 The letter concluded.
 Mr. Onu was the first Executive Governor of Abia State, Nigeria from February 1992 to December 1993 part of which later became Ebonyi State today.
 The SUV was also rejected by Mr. Elechi, who also wrote to the governor returning the car.