By Our Correspondent
It was quite dramatic on Saturday at Chief Glory Emeh’s compound in Port Harcourt when highly infuriated Emeh ordered one Papa, the Youth Chairman of Rumuohia Emohua out of his house for bringing underaged defectors to his house.
Papa had called Chief Emeh on Saturday morning that he was coming from Emohua to his house in Port Harcourt in two hired buses loaded with defectors.
Josiah Whyte (Political Editor) of Independent News Managers (INM) in a report noted that an “elated Emeh pronto called media men who responded almost immediately. By the time the occupants of the two buses alighted, the unofficial SA to the Governor on Defection and Propaganda was disappointed to see boys and girls between the ages of 13 and 15 as persons arranged by Papa for defection in his house. At that point, Chief Emeh said to Papa in Ikwerre Language, “Papa, this is the worst embarrassment I have received in recent times. I told you to go for Sergeant Awuse boys in Rumuche who have been abandoned by their master to present to Gov. Wike. Was that not what we agreed on? Did I not ask you to go to Isiodu, the Chief of Staff’s village to get some boys who were not taken care of by the Chief of Staff?”
“This is what you can bring. Is this not to ridicule me before the Governor? I have already arranged media men. Papa, from today don’t come to my house again. Simple assignment I gave you to do you could not deliver but you want me to give you money every day. Get out of my house.”
All efforts by Papa to demand money from Chief Emeh to pay the bus drivers fell on deaf ears as Emeh refused to release money for the buses. A sympathetic guest of Chief Emeh had to intervene by settling the bus drivers.
Giving his own account, Papa said he was asked to bring people and tag them defectors and get money. He said he was not aware that the people he convinced to follow him to Emeh’s house were not yet of voting age.
