My Blood Not Available To Pursue Your Ambition, Anyim Replies Gov Umahi

Against the allegation by Ebonyi State governor David Umahi that some people of the state were planning to use cultists and IPOB members to cause mayhem in the state, former Senate president Anyim Pius Anyim has called for psychiatric checks on the governor.

Anyim, in an open letter which THE WHISTLER obtained in Abakaliki, Tuesday, claimed that Umahi was ‘a prisoner of his greed and inordinate ambition’. The letter, entitled ‘Open Letter To Gov Dave Umahi On his Wild, Infantile, And Utterly Senseless Accusations Against My Person’, described the governor’s statement on 27th November, 2020 as a case of a ‘drowning man looking for who to drag down with him’.

Describing Umahi as an embodiment of ‘everything ignoble, shameless and despicable’, Anyim stated that, “Gov Umahi is pitiably delusional. He is a prisoner of his greed and inordinate ambition. Here is a drowning man looking for who to drag down with him. Gov Umahi has made his worst mistake after his latest misadventure by taking on me and other noble and respectable sons of Ebonyi State.”

Anyim said Umahi’s defection to the APC on 19th November, 2020, was a long plan, and that, ‘when he decided to consummate it, he suddenly concocted an accusation against PDP, that PDP was not willing to zone Presidency to the Southeast’, adding that, “He did not have the mental capacity to reason that no party in less than two years into a new term would bring the next election unto the front burner.”

Anyim said the governor was fond of raising ‘dusts, wild allegations and accusations against people just to divert the attention of the public before he strikes’. Quoting him, “After his defection, no person of note followed him. Unable to contain and manage the unsavory reactions from the public he ran to my home on the 20th of November 2020, and pleaded with me to defect to APC, saying that if I do, others will follow suit. I pointed out to him that his approach has made it almost impossible for anybody to defect. He pleaded with me that if I cannot defect now, I should not attend any PDP meetings. He realized that he could not persuade anybody when he saw the crème of Ebonyi elders and citizen that gathered for the inauguration of PDP Caretaker Committee.”

He said the governor’s actions of late were a pointer that he was under a spell, explaining that, “I suspect he is under a spell. He may have been told that he will need to kill before he would achieve his present enterprise and so to build up a scenario for him to kill, he will need to spew allegations of killings even when they make no sense. Governor Umahi may have been told that he needed blood to accomplish his present enterprise. For those who know him well, please notice that his lips have shifted out of shape and his eye balls shrinking. Something is pursuing Gov Umahi.”

Anyim recalled how Umahi allegedly dealt with one Pastor Ononye for declining to be part of his second-term agenda. According to Anyim, “He was so enraged that he walked the pastor out. The following day he accused the pastor of murder and that he was running an illegal school. He unleashed security agents against the pastor. The pastor’s school with about 900 pupils was closed till today. On the 2nd June, 2017 while the church was having a vigil with some widows, he sent security agents to close the church. They manhandled and threw the women out into the rain and seven days later, one of the women died. That wicked act has continued to hunt Governor Umahi. Gov Umahi was told that the only way he could win the election was if he ate on the street. Governor Umahi quickly organized a state banquet on the street at Udensi roundabout and Ebonyi people attended without knowing that it was a ritual dinner. Only Gov Umahi knows how many Ebonyians that have died mysteriously after that dinner.”

Other cases he recalled were those of Prof Bernard Ifeanyi Odoh, who resigned as former SSG under Umahi’s administration. Anyim alleged that the enraged “Governor Umahi was so offended and hit back by setting up a committee to probe the Agric loan disbursement committee which the former SSG chaired. The former SSG responded by writing to EFCC to investigate the Agric loan saga as he was ready to provide all information relating to the purported loan transactions. When Governor Umahi realized that the former SSG was not intimated, he backed down and nothing till today is heard of that committee.”

He also recalled the case of journalist Charles Out, who, according to him, ‘wrote an article that was offensive to the governor’, and how ‘On 3rd June, 2017, while he was at a newspaper stand, a bus with the inscription ‘Akubaraohia Youth Vanguard’ pulled up and at gun point he was dragged into the bus and taken to one corner of Government House, Abakaliki, where he received severe beatings until he passed out and they dropped him on the street. Up till today, Mr Otu is yet to regain his full composure.”

While alerting the public and the security agencies in particular on the alleged governor’s schemes, Anyim submitted that, “Gov Umahi needs help. He was not in this shape when I picked him. His present behaviour is certainly not normal. His behaviour and utterances are strangest whenever he puts on the costume for the new enterprise–an oversized white Agbada and an elongated red hat that over-sizes his head. I want to advise his brothers to seek psychiatric and psychological help for him before it is too late.” He described the offence he and other Ebonyi notables, like Senator Sam Egwu, might have committed as their refusal to follow Gov Umahi in his political adventure, adding that the governor might be in need of ‘high-profiled blood’. Quoting him, “Gov Umahi may have been told that he needs to kill a high-profile person in order to achieve his mad ambition. Ebonyians should be wise and those he is preparing to use for the killings should know that after using them he will also plan to kill them to cover his track.”

He reminded stakeholders about recent boasts of the governor to include: “That one of the gains of his defection is that he has been promised absolute use of the security agencies for all that he desires to do. That the Hon Attorney General of the Federation is his friend and will soon visit Abakaliki the second time, and that he will use him to deal with those opposed to him using the EFCC.

“That he will extensively use the courts to not only make it impossible for PDP to function in the state, but also to frustrate those opposed to him, including sending them to prison.”

Anyim interpreted Umahi’s statement that ‘this will be the last fight I will fight’ to mean that “He (Umahi) will kill me (Anyim) so that I will not live to fight again’, and vowed that ‘my blood is not available for him in pursuit of his ambition’. He further said, “Gov Umahi should know that there is a record of those who died mysteriously, violently, and those who just disappeared since he became governor of Ebonyi State.”