Ebonyi State Governor David Umahi has denied claims by his predecessor, Chief Martin Elechi, that he headed the Executive Council Committee on Inspection during his (Elechi) second tenure as governor.
Umahi also dismissed allegation that he was the hand behind a number of petitions before the Economic Financial Crimes Commission against Elechi and some of his children.
The governor was reacting to a letter written to him by Elechi rejecting a Toyota V8 SUV gift he gave to him.
The letter, which was copied the Speaker of the State House o Assembly, the state Chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the Department of State Security Service (DSS) in the state, was leaked to the press.
But Umahi, at an Agriculture Summit organized for clerics in Abakaliki, said his government had agreed to ignore the letter but since the former governor had decided to make it public, it was necessary to put the facts straight.
He said, “I would not have commented on the letter of my former boss if it had not been published. We agreed in the Exco that we should ignore it but when I started seeing it published, I felt that in a public gathering like this, we have to clear some certain issues.”
The governor, however, explained that he was sometimes drafted to a monitoring team if there were engineering difficulties in some projects during Elechi’s tenure. He mentioned some of them to include the Oferekpe water project and the Agba bridge which he said his involvement helped to save the state a whopping N1.6bn.
Umahi admitted that vehicles were purchased for former governors, including Elechi and former Senate President, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, but that rejecting the car was not the best option as Elechi had written to him shortly after he left office to give his wife two cars which he obliged.
Umahi said some of the petitions that made Elechi a regular visitor to the EFCC were written when both of them were in government as governor and deputy governor respectively “by someone who is now in his (Elechi) camp.”
While insisting that his administration never wrote any petition against the former governor, he said he had personally appealed to the EFCC to leave Elechi alone because of his age.
He said he also told the commission that if Elechi was found wanting in anyway, he would pay back.
He, however, added that Elechi’s children who were involved in contract scams would have to answer for their actions”.
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