CITIZENS COMPASS—Former Anambra State governor, Dr Chris Ngige has for the first time publicly opened up on how he was allegedly forced by his political mentors to swear loyalty to them in Okija shrine.
Speaking in an interview with Saturday Vanguard, Ngige admitted going to Okija shrine but claimed that it was under duress.
He said: I was taken to Okija shrine by force. By midnight, I didn’t know where we were going, and it was a few days to my election. So they said we must go there to swear an oath of loyalty. Of course, I know that those shrines and those small deities don’t work. God Almighty is above all of them. So I went with my Bible and holy water. When we got there and I looked at what they were doing, one of them now opted to go and swear for me.
“I said, fine and he did. But when I became governor and the security report showed what they were doing there, swindling people, I don’t know how it happened, but the then president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo gave instruction to my CP through the IGP, that the place should be dismantled. The CP called me and we went and leveled the place. So, that particular shrine is no longer there. But there are so many little shrines in Okija. It’s now that people have forsaken those things, having noted that it was being operated by a swindling gang.”
The scandal over Ngige’s oath of loyalty to his political godfathers at Okija Shrine was one of the events of his governorship.
—Saturday Vanguard
