package removal failure

[Me - Atlantic]

sudo apt-get --purge remove phpmyadmin
Password:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  phpmyadmin*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 2 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives.
After unpacking 11.1MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? Y
(Reading database ... 23787 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing phpmyadmin ...
/var/lib/dpkg/info/phpmyadmin.prerm: line 12: db_get: command not found
dpkg: error processing phpmyadmin (--purge):
 subprocess pre-removal script returned error exit status 127
Errors were encountered while processing:
 phpmyadmin
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Please help.  I have been trying to get this gone so I can re-install it
clean for a couple of hours.