Angry Abia traders boo Gov Orji over poll result

Governor Theodore Orji was again booed and pelted with sachet water on Tuesday at Onu-Imo market at the boundary between Abia and Imo states.

He was on his way to Owerri Airport en route Abuja, when traders, who heard the siren of his motorcade, trooped out to the road, armed with bags of sachet water. They pelted the motorcade with sachets of water, jeered and booed him, shouting, “Onye-oshi vote, Onye-oshi vote,” meaning one that steals votes.

Orji was suspected to be travelling to Abuja to pressurise the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to have the state’s controversial governorship election already declared inconclusive, work in his favour.

The angry traders alleged that Orji and his PDP had stolen the mandate freely given to the governorship candidate of the masses’ party, All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).

They stated that Orji had shown desperation to become a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, hoping that he will fall like a pack of cards at the tribunal no matter how hard he might try. The traders insisted  that he was rejected by his people during the poll. They further accused him of forging figures he allocated to himself through some compromised INEC officials.

Some of the traders, including Chinedu Nwankwo, James Orakwue and Kingsley Maduagwu, said it was worrisome that Governor Orji and his son, Chinedu, could be wasting billions of public funds on INEC to win their elections as legislators and impose their surrogate on the people, when workers and pensioners were owed several months of salaries and pensions.

They said: “The billions of naira being lavished by this heartless family is the money meant for the development of Aba and Abia, which Orji abandoned, as well as the payment of salaries of workers and pensioners. God will one day bring Orji to judgment, in or out of office. “He must answer for his inhumanity to the people of Abia, non-indigenes, traders, teachers, doctors and medical personnel, whose destinies he has toiled with for eight years of his administration.”