ABUJA—A MEMBER of the House of Representatives, Chief Chuma Nzeribe, called yesterday for police interrogation of Governor Chris Ngige over the alleged role he played last year at the Okija shrine in his bid to become governor.
The police last week raided the shrine from where they recovered 20 human skulls and a fresh corpse.
The governor was alleged to have sworn to an oath of allegiance to his estranged political god-father, Chief Chris Uba, at the shrine.
Reacting to the police raid in Abuja, Chief Nzeribe, an associate of Chief Uba, said he had information to offer the police should they arrest the governor for interrogation.
But the Senior Special Assistant to Governor Ngige on Media, Mr. Fred Chukwuube, said last night that it was Chief Nzeribe himself that ought to be arrested for “popularising the shrine by taking the former Bakassi Boys there when he was security adviser to Mbadinuju to swear to an oath of allegiance to himself and Chris Uba.
Chief Nzeribe said: “Some time last year, Dr. Chris Ngige acknowledged that he went to Okija shrine to take an oath. It is important that the Nigeria Police have another look at that statement. We wonder why a governor went to the shrine. We also say that he is fit to lead inquiries into allegations of pagan worship with human corpses.
“I call on the police to arrest Ngige. I am ready to volunteer information to the Police. If Dr. Ngige acknowledged that he went to the shrine, he would have seen the corpses. Did he notify the Police about the existence of human remains in Okija? He should be questioned for his concealment of evil practice,” he said.
Commenting on the circumstances that led Ngige to the evil shrine, the lawmaker explained that it was Ngige who suggested the oath taking at the shrine and named his witnesses as Dr. Okey Udeh, Chief Okey Odunze, himself and Senator Abana. "We didn’t hate Ngige to make him governor. We still don’t hate him. What we are saying is that he should be investigated. We now want to see the kind of place Ngige went, all to become governor," he said.
He said nobody forced Ngige to the shrine as alleged, saying: “Chief Uba never went there. It was Ngige who drove himself to the shrine at about 3a.m. Senator Abana was in the car; Okey Udeh was in the car. No body forced him. He was not drunk nor drugged. It was entirely his suggestion and he drove himself to the shrine."
Chief Nzeribe exonerated the Ihiala people from having anything to do with the Okija shrine. “No true son of Okija can ever go to Okija shrine. So, I couldn’t have taken Ngige to the shrine. I ask the police to look beyond the cosmetics of people who plead innocent in the day time and spend the night in pagan worshipping,” he said.
Ngige's aide reacts
However, responding to the allegation, Mr. Chukwueube said apart from taking former Bakassi Boys to the shrine to swear to an oath of allegiance, government was also aware that he (Nzeribe) attempted to take members of the state Assembly to swear to an oath of allegiance to himself and Uba.
“The members acting on the governor’s directive refused. For him to be asking that the governor should be arrested is diversionary and it is part of his usual antics. The Anambra State government fully supports the police raid of the shrine. We regard the shrine and the priest as the last wastages of past governments in the state,”Chukwueube said.
Already, the special police detachment deployed to take over the investigation of the Okija shrine has arrived Awka, the state capital.
