Gov Orji booed, pelted at Bishop Ezeonyia’s burial

The resentment which residents of Aba and in­deed the entire people of Abia State have for Gov Theodore Orji played out once again yesterday as 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, late Most Rev Vincent Valentine Ezeonyia.

This is about the sixth time the governor would be booed in the city due to poor performance.

What awaited Gov Orji 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.

What happened to Gov Orji inside the church, for film producers, was part one.

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.

Some people who spoke to Saturday Sun said they were not happy with the way Gov Orji neglected Aba and the entire Abia state, allow­ing almost all the roads built by former Gover­nor Orji Uzor Kalu to go bad.

“Kalu built so many roads in Aba when he was governor and we did not suffer at all, but see what we are going through now in the state, this governor has not cared to rehabilitate the roads, he is not paying workers salary, in fact we don’t know what he is doing with our money and we will like to get the answer before the election.

“Kalu who Gov Orji betrayed, modernized the Enyimba Stadium, tell us of a single proj­ect the present governor executed in the city that will make us to be happy with him. I know you came from Lagos, but sample opinion around, no single soul living in this city is happy with the governor and his PDP government and we will show him this very soon”, one of the angry residents stated.

Although Dr. Alex Otti, the APGA guber candidate and Sir Chik­we Udensi of PPA were not officially recog­nized, the crowd watch­ing the event through large television screens mounted at various locations around the church premises gave standing ovation each time their images were shown.

It was gathered that several efforts and en­treaties made by Gov. Orji’s protocol officers to persuade the church authority allow their principal address the people failed, as ag­grieved residents or­dered the aides who had mounted the state box by a corner of the church to dismantle it and take it back to their vehicle.

Some Aba residents who watched the dra­ma commended the Catholic Church for not allowing the Orji to talk, wondering what a governor who they ac­cused of not perform­ing would come to tell them.