Encomium
Abia state Governor, Chief T A Orji says he was not humiliated by Aba residents at a recent function. The Governor who stated this in a phone interview with ENCOMIUM Weekly on Monday, March 2, 2015 blamed the falsehood on his political opponents and mischief makers.
“It is not true the Governor was booed and pelted in Aba by residents of the city at the burial of the pioneer Catholic Bishop of Aba Diocese, Most Rev. Vincent Valentine Ezeonyia. It is equally not true he was prevented from making a speech at the Mass held in honour of the decessed. Even a representative of the President and former Governor of Anambra state, Mr Peter Obi was also not recognised for a speech”. Governor Orji clarified through his Chief Press Secretary, Mr Charles Ajunwa.
The Governor was reacting to a story that claimed he was booed and pelted with sachet water in the commercial city when he attended the burial of the pioneer Catholic Bishop of Aba Diocese, Most Rev Vincent Valentine Ezeonyia on Friday, February 27, 2015.
The promoters of the story blamed the incident which they claimed was happening to him for the sixth time on his percieved poor performance in Abia.
“The resentment which residents of Aba and indeed the entire people of Abia State have for Gov Theodore, who came with his wife, Mercy and who many believed had no business coming to Aba for anything since he totally neglected the city for the over seven years he has been governor started unfolding immediately he entered the Cathedral of the Christ the King Church where the Holy Mass for the late Bishop was conducted.
Hardly had the governor taken his seat and the master of ceremony announced Gov Orji’s arrival than hundreds of people who were watching events inside the church through large TV, started screaming, “No! No! We don’t need him, No! No! We don’t need him; he has killed us in this state.
”Before then, the governor’s aides had hurriedly set up the stage box where Gov Orji was to address the people. However, the crowd’s hostile attitude towards their governor, did not only stop him from making any speech at the funeral as his aides out of shame folded the stage box back into the bag they brought it with at the end, but Gov Orji’s name was not officially mentioned again perhaps out of fear of the trouble it would cause.
“As the crowd jeered and booed Gov Orji, they intermittently cheered and hailed when faces of people like the former governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi, APGA governorship candidate, Dr. Alex Otti; PPA governorship candidate, Sir Chikwe Udensi and Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, former governor of old Abia State were shown on the TV screens.
Gov Orji’s main ordeal began after the corpse of late Bishop Ezeonyia was interred and he made to enter his vehicle. As the people inside the church premises sighted him sandwiched by security personnel, they started booing uncontrollably, calling him all sorts of unprintable names. The crowd followed the governor’s convoy booing as it made towards Asa road where a huge crowd joined in the show, jeering, booing and pelting his vehicles with bags of sachet water. The military Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) which accompanied the governor to Aba, could not stop the people some of who even climbed the road’s median so that they could be properly identified,” the report claimed.
But Encomium Weekly can authoritatively report that contrary to the anti-Orji report, the entire Aba residents warmly welcomed him to the requiem mass of the most distinguished clergy.
An online portal CKN, even innocently posted images of a cheery mammoth crowd that followed the convoy of the incumbent governor and the Abia PDP Governorship candidate, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu.
In one of his Facebook posts on Sunday, March 2, 2015, CKN’s publisher, Chris Kehinde Nwandu predicted that the ruling PDP would win by landslide should the massive crowd that hailed the guber hopeful turn out to vote for him on April 11.
The opposition has sustainable an obsessive criticism of the out- going Governor whom they believe schemed them out of relevance in the state.
Governor T A Orji has a very sour relationship with his out-of- favour political godfather and predecessor, Dr Orji Uzor-Kalu. Their fight got messier when the incumbent did not accommodate him in the scheme of things in the state. The billionaire business man even had to lose his senatorial bid to the fierce battle for the soul of the state.
– UCHE OLEHI
