Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State has fingered church leaders and members in the State for persecuting his government despite his efforts to develop the State in the last seven years.
He however confessed that he has incurred the wrath of many churches within Owerri municipality due to his administration’s urban renewal programme.
The Governor who spoke at a media parley in Owerri said “the re-moval of the church at Ware¬house Roundabout angered members of the Pentecostal churches against me and removal of a church fence at Akwakuma made the Catholics declare me persona non grata, while the removal of some churches to create Sam Mbakwe Road from Umezuruike Hospital angered the Apostolic and some white garment churches.”
According to him, the Church is also targeting his political party- the All Progressive Congress, APC during the campaigns to disgrace them, revealing that such campaigns has already began.
He recalled how his wife and First Lady attended a church service in Ikeduru Local Government Area of one of her followers only for the priest in charge to ask her to stay at the back seat because she came late.
“The priest even had to announce it with a microphone telling people seated behind to come to the front seat and that no late comer should be given the front seat when my wife was stepping into the church.
“Again, on a personal note, during the child dedication of one of my grand children at the St. Joseph the Worker Catholic Chaplaincy in Imo State University. I initially did not want to attend that occasion but knowing who my daughter is, if I didn’t go she might come here and start crying over that. So, I managed to attend the church.
“During the closing processes, in an event like this, the governor should talk. But when I took the microphone to speak, the priest in charge of the church who is also one of the lecturers I pay in IMSU, approached me and was told me not to talk politics inside the church. I felt humiliated because it has never happened anywhere where a governor is told what to say.
“All I did was to tell them that I wasn’t there as a visitor but as a grandfather if not such actions would have been met with consequences”, he said
The Governor recalled how Charly Boy Oputa snatched the microphone from him during the church service of his late Father, Justice Chukwudifu Oputa.
