Desperate PNG Prime Minister Peter O’Neill sacks Chief Magistrate in move to Eliminate all opposition to remain in power

By JOSEPH MOREA
PNGBLOGS

Peter O’Neill’s purging of opposition exercise reached its new height. Yes, it happened to be the Chief Magistrate Ms Nerrie Elliakim this time.

In his latest attempt to remove all opposition, Mr O’Neill directed his Chief Secretary Manasupe Zurenuoc to direct his Attorney General to suspend the Chief Magistrate. This comes after the District Court refused to entertain an application by stooged Police Officers to arrest Director of Fraud Squad Mathew Damaru, Timothy Gitua and lawyer McRonald Nale concerning some drummed up charges of perjury. In a series of events leading up to today, the public at large witnessed the following:  

• Two lawyers Greg Egan and Terence Lambert acting for Task-Force Sweep members were banned from entry.  
• Two high ranking police officers namely Thomas Eluh and Timothy Gitua were terminated in the most dishonourable way. 
• Unsuccessful attempt to obtain arrest warrant against Mathew Damaru, Timothy Gitua and McRonald Nale of Jema Lawyers.  
• Request for Suspension of Chief Magistrate. Chief of Task-Force Sweep Sam Koim was reported in the Post Court last week as saying this is a coordinated attempt to ‘obliterate’ his team. One wonders why the Chief Magistrate?  

Chief Magistrate was the one who issued the initial arrest warrant against Prime Minister O’Neill. People like Isaac Lupari sniffed around to find something on the Chief Magistrate but could not. To O’Neill –“if it wasn’t for Chief Magistrate granting the warrant in the
first place, I couldn’t have gone through all this shit”. Chief Magistrate is believed to have met with her magistrates and encouraged them to be vigilant and scrutinize urgent applications before granting them as there may be matters pending in the National Court.

In the wake of this, the presiding Magistrate refused to entertain the ludicrous application brought forward to arrest Damaru, Gitua and Nale last week. For O’Neill and his team, the only way to get around it now is to find some dirt on Chief Magistrate and remove her. O’Neill and his team had been finding dirts on their opposing team by banning lawyers and dismissing career officers. When one does that, it’s called “vindictive”.

He has been carrying out this cleansing exercise all of last week. Has anyone ever noticed his silence in all of these? He seemed to have some answers for all queries but not with these ones. His Silence is deafening! Peter O’Neill is a dangerous kind of a breed. He is destructive! His destruction to the tenets of governance and institutions of government is irreparable.

He is taking extra-constitutional steps to cow his opponents –institutions providing check and balance – wants absolute power. O’Neill needs to go! We have to stop him. He is touching on institutions that no PM in the history of this country has ever done, not to mention his daylight corruption and frauds.

View the Letter issued by Chief Secretary here..