One of the greatest mistakes Igbos make today is calling former governor Theodore Orji an Igbo leader.
Ohaneze Ndigbo should stop inviting him to its caucus or Ime Obi meeting or even in any gathering of Igbo leaders.
If not for God’s intervention, Theodore Orji would have brought war in Igbo land.
He was in prison when Orji Uzo Kalu made him a governor.
Are you surprised?
Yes. He was in EFCC custody. He did not know how the PPA governorship campaign was done.
He did not know how the party was formed or funded.
Orji Uzor Kalu alone knew how he manipulated everything and Theodore was brought out of prison and sworn-in as governor of Abia State.
Immediately he became governor, Theodore Orji embarked on a non-indigene cleansing project in Abia State government.
He sacked all non-Abia Igbos in the State civil service and local governments.
But you know what? Not one Yoruba or Hausa Fulani worker was touched. Only fellow Igbos.
Most of them were born and bred in Abia State.
Despite all pleading from prominent Igbos, who cautioned him that this kind of thing has never happened in igbo land, Theodore Orji refused to listen.
If not the way the matter was handled by Peter Obi who was then chairman of South East Governors Forum, by pleading with the various South East governors to absorb the sacked workers from their States into their respective work force in order to avert a major crisis in Igbo land. That was after Igbo governors had several meetings with Theodore Orji.
Who knows, if not for that meeting, Theodore Orji might have gone ahead to dispossess non-Abia Igbo indigenes of their houses in Aba which would have caused a serious socio-political upheaval in Igbo land because other States in South East would have retaliated.
And you call such a person an Igbo leader. For where?
That was why I was amazed the other time Ohaneze held its Ime-Obi meeting to see Theodore Orji as one of the so-called Igbo leaders of Ohaneze Ndigbo.
A man who so callously and unconscionably sacked his fellow Igbos from their means of livelihood and preferred Yoruba and Fulani workers to his kith and kin.
This is one of the reasons I say that Ohaneze has no direction. Otherwise, how could they be inviting people known to have openly and brazenly shown hatred and spite for Igbos like Theodore Orji. Too bad and too sad.
Yet, after the sack of the workers, Theodore Orji could not perform as governor. Less than one yearafter, everything began to go haywire in Abia State. Nothing was happening.
No salaries to workers.
No infrastructure.
No roads.
No water.
Nothing tangible by Theodore Orji. Only complaints.
Complaints of no money and all that.
Complaints of interference by Orji Uzor Kalu
Complaints about this and that.
After squandering all the money in Abia State, he left PPA and joined APGA. Ojukwu needed to go to Umauhia to publicly receive him into APGA . At the time, Ojukwu had health issues and people expected governor Theodore Orji to arrange for a private jet to take Ojukwu to Umuahia as some of us believe it would not be comfortable for the great Igbo leader to go by road. Theodore Orji couldn’t .
Still Ojukwu managed to go to Umuahia where he raised Theodore Orji’s hand at APGA rally and presented him as APGA governor to the applause of Igbos.
Barely two months after he joined APGA, Theodore Orji decamped to the PDP. That was how this political adventurer tried to rubbish Ojukwu and incurred the curse of a persona non grata in Igbo land till today.
It was this same former governor who believed that only himself and his family are the only competent people in his community to occupy top political positions.
During his tenure as governor, he made one of his sons a legislator and majority leader in Abia State House of Assembly. In 2019, he made his son, Chinedu Orji, speaker of the House of Assembly while their father, who ruled the state from 2007 to 2015, becme a Senator of the Federal Republic from 2015 to 2021.
In the last 2023 elections, the same Chinedu Orji, contested for the House of Reps to represent Ikwuano/Umuahia federal constituency but was beaten by Labour party candidate, Obi Aguocha.
Are they the only competent ones in their community?
Who knows?
But for Peter Obi ‘elu pee’ revolution that ousted PDP in Abia State, Theodore Orji was already hatching plans to install his son as Ikpeazu’s successor.
The truth is that any day Nigeria begins to have proper elections, Theodore Orji and Igbos like him can never win any election in Igbo land. The God of Igbo land is not asleep and will never allow the Igbos to make grave mistakes again.
