The many sins of the Enugu State Governor, Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi seems to be catching up with him, a few months before the end of his government of deceit and craftiness.
He will mostly likely need all the guile and cunningness the world can afford to be able to stave off the calamity that now dangles over his head like the swords of Damocles.
The almighty Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC has landed in Enugu, with their binoculars trained on how the finances of the state have been mismanaged in the past four years.
Already two bank branch managers associated with the state finances have been quizzed and are now helping the anti-graft agency with all they know about the sleaze that has characterized the shady and shadowy government Hon. Ugwuanyi presided over while pretending to the public that he’s a saint with his well practiced and choreographed toothy smile.
One of his acolytes and a former aide to one of Enugu’s most vocal and vibrant senators, who has been fingered for coordinating Ugwuanyi’s massive looting of the state treasury, has reportedly gone underground, on learning about the activities of the EFCC in the state. The EFCC is said to be specifically looking for him to tell them all he knows about the financial dealings of Ugwuanyi and his acolytes. He’s said to have melted into the freezing air of the harmattan night.
The EFCC is also said to be interested in finding out why no single local government has been able to execute any project in four years and why Governor Ugwuanyi directed them to focus on stomach infrastructure instead. The agency is trying to link this strange policy to pervasive evidence of mass looting and larceny in the state’s 17 local governments, where not even one of them had dared to build a culvert talk more of ahspalt roads that council chairmen built with reckless abandon during the Sullivan Chime administration.
It’s common knowledge in Enugu and a matter of great interest to the EFCC and other anti-graft agencies that once local government allocations are released, wage bills are deducted and the rest, ranging between N30 million and N60million depending on what comes into the local government coffers, withdrawn in cash and sent to government house where the chairman bringing the loot is given between N500,000 and N2,000,000 to run his administration for the month.
It is indeed reported that to conceal the deal and avoid a possible hidden camera worn by the Chairman reporting with the loot, the chief of staff in the government house, Dr. Festus Uzo will dash into the toilet and give directives on where the chairman should deposit the Ghana-must-go containing the money, and would only emerge after the chairman has dropped the money.
The common feature of the office of the chief of staff is endless rows of Ghana-must-go sacks containing rows and rows of loot from the local governments. It’s from this stack of looted money that Governor Ugwuanyi funds his imperial fantasies such as endless endorsements by carefully arranged and nurtured groups and the over 10,000 billboards singing his praises, including one that compared him to Jesus Christ.
Since the visit of the EFCC, the council chairmen in the state have all been stricken by panic as many are said to be finding it difficult to retire the heavy monthly withdrawals that are not tied to any project. Some of them are indeed at a loss what to do and have confessed to associates about their impending trial and incarceration.
