Impeachment: Enugu deputy gov collapses at panel

The impeachment trial of Enugu State Deputy Governor, Mr Sunday Onyebuchi was suspended abruptly yesterday as he collapsed while giving evidence at the Enugu High Court complex, where the panel is sitting.
A source at the panel told Daily Sun that the deputy governor had started giving his evidence at 9:30a.m and requested for water at about 11a.m before he suddenly slumped.
The source said the Chief of Staff, Mrs Ifeoma Nwobodo, and the state Attorney General, Mr. Anthony Ani (SAN), who had also gone to testify at the panel, had just taken their seats, before Onyebuchi collapsed.
The deputy governor’s counsel, Ogochukwu Onyekwuruje, confirmed to journalists, who were waiting outside the court, that Onyebuchi had complained that he was feeling dizzy after three hours of testifying before the panel.

His words: “He had started giving his evidence and somewhere along the line, he developed some weakness and dizziness and at that point, the tribunal stopped for the family to attend to him. He was immediately taken out of the courtroom and was taken to a hospital.
“They have diagnosed blood pressure and a medical report has just been brought showing his state of health. I think he is stable but there has to be some precautionary medical attention given to him to properly stabilise him.
“What I know is that he suddenly developed a high blood pressure. You will understand that for the past one week, he had been here morning to evening. He had been running around organising his defence and particularly yesterday he was with us till about 11:00p.m., trying to organise his defence. The man is willing and ready to defend himself to the satisfaction of his conscience. So, it must be part of his problem, the stress he had gone through all this one week.
“What we believe now, until proper examination, is that he temporarily suffered some dizziness and weakness. At least, he started by telling us he was not seeing clearly, he was dizzy and asked for a bottle of water and from that point he was taken out.
“He was seated and he was giving his evidence slowly and properly when suddenly he went into this situation. There was no argument, there was nothing. He did not fall; he just complained to the tribunal chairman, ‘I am dizzy, I am not seeing clearly and I need a bottle of water’, and from that point, you could see him bending down, holding his head and was taken out.”
After the panel reconvened at 2p.m, Onyekwuruje told journalists that the report, from Dr. B. C. Anisiuba, a consultant cardiologist at the UNTH Enugu, where the deputy governor was rushed to, showed that he suffered from high blood pressure and recommended that he be allowed to rest for a week.
This, he said, made them to request that the panel be adjourned till Monday to ensure that Onyebuchi recovered fully.   The deputy governor had collapsed in 2011 at the Nsukka Market when he went to the town with Governor Sullivan Chime and other Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members for campaigns and was rushed back to Enugu for medical attention.