Chukwumerije Buried, Orji Absent At Event

THE remains of the three-term serving senator for Abia North, Comrade Uche Chukwumerije were interred at his Ngodo Isuochi country home in Umunneochi Council yesterday with the state governor, Chief Theodore Orji conspicuously absent.

Explaining the governor’s absence at the funeral which was attended by many members of the National Assembly led by the Senate President, David Mark,  Orji’s Adviser on Political Affairs,  Chief Amah Abraham  said that the late  senator’s family did not  carry the state government  along in the preparations despite the support the government gave the senator.

It was also gathered that the late senator who was a member of the state government controlled PDP, was accused by the party of anti-party activities.

Lamenting the death of the senator whom he described as a strong senator, Senator Mark said that although Senator Chukwumerije was absent from sittings when he was ill, almost all the senators attended the session to bid him farewell.

In his sermon at the church service held at the Wesley Methodist Cathedral, Ngodo, the Prelate of the Methodist Church Nigeria, His Eminence Dr Samuel Uche described him as one that prepared for death. He condemned corrupt practices especially by public office holders, which he said has permeated the society and urged Nigerians to unite against the malady.

According to him, it is condemnable for one elected official to take home the sum of N300million in the name of community projects and called for reduction of elected public officers’ salaries by half to ease unemployment, warning that not doing so may lead one day to mass revolution. In his tribute to his late father, titled ‘Another Day Shall Dawn Upon You’, the senator’s eldest son, Che Chidi Chukwumerije, said : “Worry not General.

It is well. Look yonder – there is the Light. Journey thither. It is well; we are fine. We are your handiwork”.

He continued: “For your final moments were the greatest gift of all. In your frailest moments you showed the greatest strength. Short conversations of purest gold. Never was your spirit more irrepressible than when your body grew weak.

The look in your eyes in those quiet moments, a thousand thoughts per second. Thank you, Man, for everything. May you find the Dawn”.

The family oration read by the same Chidi, reads: “It was not at all a paradox that a man who rose to the higher echelons of the Biafran struggle would repeat the feat, many years later, in the Nigerian government. Rather, it was a testament to his personal qualities and to his life-long commitment to public service, and to the twin canons of Socialism and Pan-Africanism”.

To honour the late senator, his community has declared a week of mourning during which the town’s markets would remain closed.