Late Chief C. C. Onoh: Family angry with Onyeama, calls for justice
The family of former governor of old Anambra State and one of the founding fathers of Enugu State, the late Chief C.C. Onoh, has threatened to sue the Federal Civil Service Commission and the Foreign Affairs Minister, Geoffrey Onyeama, if it confirms the purported sack of her daughter, Ambassador Lilian Onoh, to be true.
The purported sack of Ambassador Onoh from the Civil Service went viral on the social media last week even when she has not been served with the letter. The family head, Okwo Nwa-Ogbodo, who made this known in a statement, said they believed that Onyeama, who was their in-law some time, has been victimising their daughter since he came to the Foreign Affairs Ministry insisting that he was behind the renewed online campaign of calumny against their daughter.
The family head said: “We would be pursuing legal action against Onyeama personally and the Civil Service Commission in the event that it is indeed true that the Civil Service Commission had participated in this kangaroo lynching of an upright ambassador who had always fought corruption, and who was partly responsible for the UN Convention that enabled not only Nigeria, but also all countries to demand the repatriation of stolen funds stashed overseas.”
The family said that the whole process around the purported sack was so dubious and lacking in any form of adherence to the rules, saying that it was not even sure that the Federal Civil Service Commission was responsible for it, insisting that it could have been forged.
Nwa-Ogbodo also pointed out that Ambassador Onoh’s Open Letter on looting of her Mission’s coffers was written on February 2, 2021, which led to her testifying at the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on March 23-24, 2021, faulting the purported date of the dismissal letter, which was backdated to February 1, 2021 as an infantile attempt to wipe out the record of Ambassador Onoh’s letter and testimony, wondering “how she could be dismissed on a date that she had not even resumed from leave, had not been deployed and had not been issued a query, let alone how she could be dismissed for not obeying orders when none had been given.”
The family head wondered that while Ambassador Onoh has not received the purported sack letter, many online media outfits were given copies from the minister’s office.
Nwa-Ogbodo, therefore, blamed Onyeama for the online media campaign of calumny against Ambassador Onoh, which claimed that she was purportedly sacked for “misappropriation”.
He noted that only an illiterate person could claim that Ambassador Onoh misappropriated $70,000 for a Mercedes Benz that was bought by the Embassy directly from Mercedes Benz company and registered in the Embassy’s name, not to mention the fact that the new Ambassador in Namibia has been using the brand new vehicle for two years now.
He recalled that Ambassador Onoh was also on record as having left hundreds of thousands of dollars in her Embassy’s accounts when she left Namibia and that she had quickly raised the alarm when Onyeama sent a retired accountant and an officer to decimate her Embassy’s accounts only 10 days after her departure.
Nwa-Ogbodo pointed out that the false accusation of misappropriation of funds that the Embassy of Nigeria paid to Mercedes Benz for a car that the government has been using since it was bought was so lacking in common sense that it exposed the accusers to ridicule and shame.
He claimed that was the best example of the long-standing witch-hunt that the minister has been carrying out against their daughter since he was appointed into office. The family head alleged that Onyeama had collected his Estacode during official trips even when almost every Embassy had paid for his hotel bills and those of his entourage from their meagre overhead budget.
This, Nwa-Ogbodo said, was unlike their daughter, Ambassador Onoh, who had paid for her hotel bills and vehicles during official trips and collected exact refunds based on provable receipts.
He, therefore, said that the family was flabbergasted that the person who followed the rules should be so victimized by the person who was the real offender.
“Based on the lies he had used to accuse Ambassador Onoh, a precedent had been set for the retroactive sack of all other Ambassadors and senior officers since 1960 who had ever used the overhead budget to pay for official travel as specified by the rules,” the family head said, wondering at what he described as brazen display of impunity by the minister.
The family condemned in its entirety, the online defamatory campaign that not only targeted at Ambassador Onoh, but also the name of her late father, Chief C.C. Onoh, who was the only governor released without charge within two weeks of arrest following the 1983 coup by Major-General Muhammadu Buhari.
Nwa-Ogbodo expressed outrage that the minister could engage in such a sustained vindictive, petty war against the first female career Ambassador from Enugu State since its creation and the first Enugu officer employed in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who is also the most senior officer from Enugu State in the ministry, commending Ambassador Onoh on her resilience.
He noted that their daughter had established a global reputation as a straight incorruptible officer, saying that the “attempt to tarnish this unblemished reputation had been exposed for what it was by the vicious nature of the online campaign that was embarked upon and the lies that were cooked up without even the pretense of common sense.”
The family, therefore, urged President Muhammadu Buhari, to take the same speedy action he took against the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Adamawa State to correct the injustice meted out to their daughter.
