Group to Orji: ‘You’re overwhelmed by Okorocha’s profile’

South-East Progressives Assembly has berated Abia State Governor, Theodore Orji, for stopping a proposed ceremony expected to have hosted Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State at Abia State Polytechnic.

It posited that Orji stopped the event “for being jittery and overwhelmed by Okorocha’s towering profile.”
The purported event was organised by some clerics under the platform of Nigeria Rescue Missionaries.
President of SEPA, Mr. Ebere Uzoukwa, branded the Abia State governor “anti-Igbo,” and accused him of implementing policies that have largely promoted disunity in the zone.
Orji’s aides had claimed that both Abia State Polytechnic authorities and security agencies in the state were not communicated ahead of the purported ceremony.
An aide in the governor’s media unit, Mr. Kingsley Emeruwa, said it was clearly insincere on the part of the organisers of the said event and SEPA to suggest or even hint that Governor Orji stopped the event.

“Orji is rather too busy to notice such inconsequential event and is not and has never been in the class of petty governor,” Emeruwa told our correspondent.
He asked, “The group claimed they wrote the police and State Security Service for permit, why didn’t they also say what the police and SSS replied.”
According to Emeruwa, “It is one thing to apply and get acknowledgment for your application and another thing for the Police and SSS to endorse your application and approve your event.”
He said, “It is not the role or job of Theodore Orji to stop anybody from holding any event in Aba. This is a democracy.
“In any case, it is the police who may have sealed the place that should tell the security of an area and what event should and should not hold in a place.”
But SEPA said it was not true, as the Nigeria Rescue Missionaries fulfilled every legitimate and laid down procedure needed to hold such event.
Such procedure, the group said, include getting approval and paying for the venue as well as notifying the relevant security agencies in the state.
“The ceremony was not organised to celebrate Okorocha’s birthday as erroneously claimed by Orji and his government, but to inaugurate the national body of Nigeria Rescue Missionaries to pave way for its National Leadership Agenda Forum,” said SEPA’s President, Ebere Uzoukwa.
Uzoukwa demanded an unreserved apology from Orji within seven days.
“We equally give seven-days ultimatum to the management of the Polytechnic, to release all confiscated materials used to decorate the venue on the eve of the purported ceremony and pay adequate compensation for breaching the contract it entered with Nigeria Rescue Missionaries or be ready to face full legal action,” he added.