Soludo Calls Bluff of Catholic Priest’s Insecurity Prophecy, Describes it as ‘Drama’

•Anambra police commend indigenes for giving information on criminals

•Governor order repeat of teachers’ online recruitment exam marred by network failure

David-Chyddy Eleke

Anambra State Governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo has called the bluff of a catholic priest, Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Obimma over the cleric’s prophecy about the governor being attacked at the government house by Fulani Herdsmen.

Obimma, a popular catholic priest in the state had during his homily at his adoration service prophesied that he saw Soludo being attacked and shot at, while he ran with blood all over him.

But in a reply to the priest, which was seen by THISDAY, Soludo described the prophecy as more of drama and theatrics than reality.

The governor in his response while stating that he is a catholic and respects the doctrine of the church, accused the priest of fueling the insecurity in the state, rather than trying to proffer solution to it.

Soludo in a private reply to the priest said: “Good evening father! I just called your two numbers after listening to your so called ‘prophetic’ outbursts— prophesying about ‘Fulani herdsmen’ with tribal marks invading government house Awka and having me running out in pool of blood.

“I have been in the public arena for two decades and I appreciate comments and criticisms from the citizens including the men of God. I welcome your comments, advice and even criticisms. Such help us to do better— as we are certainly not perfect!

“You have my contact and assuming that anything was ‘revealed’ to you as a threat to my life, do you really believe that the best way to communicate it is on your pulpit? By the way, God didn’t ‘reveal’ to you the attack by unknown gun men on me last year at a rally, killing three policemen; nor has he ‘revealed’ to you any of the dozens of the attacks on innocent people this year so that the people may take caution or pray?

“Funny enough these ‘pulpit prophecies’ are always about high public officials. I have lived my life to this age without needing or relying on ‘prophecies,’ and it is too late now to change.

“My prayer is simply: ‘Let your will be done.’ So please, if you have further ‘revelations’ just pray about them or keep them to yourself— I don’t want to know because the God in heaven that I serve is totally in charge of my life!”

Soludo further said: “Father, I expect you to be part of the solution and not part of the problem. We admire you and the thousands of your followers deserve leadership and direction. Matters of security should not be part of the drama!

“We expect you to encourage your supporters to report criminals and to be part of the solution. Or, if you don’t know the full ramifications of the security challenge, to call or request to be briefed.”

In a related development, Anambra State Police command has commended indigenes of the state for coming out with information on criminals in their localities.

The state police command, stated this through its spokesperson, DSP Toochukwu Ikenga that information by indigenes helped the police to burst many criminal syndicates in the last one weeks and also taken out many criminal elements.

Ikenga during a chat with THISDAY said: “You know that last week when you people came for a press conference, the CP (Echeng Echeng) had complained about the reluctance of most communities to come out with information on criminals, who have been code named unknown gunmen.

“The CP had complained that there seemed to be a conspiracy of silence among most indigenes, but I can tell you that after those reports, many indigenes have now started volunteering information to us.

“Within one week, we have gotten information that we never knew existed. We have also heard a lot of stories from people, and we have used that information to burst many criminal syndicates.”

Ikenga thanked the media for the role it was playing, saying a lot of criminal suspects had been arrested, including native doctors who fortify the criminals.

He promised that soon, more stories of the arrest of criminals would be made available to the media as suspects were still being interrogated.

Speaking on the recent arrest of a native doctor, Ikenga said the suspect has made a lot of useful information, and would be paraded soon, with many others.

He expressed optimism that soon, the reign of criminality in the state would be over, while calling on more indigenes to come up with information, including of the camping of criminals in any part of the state.

Meanwhile, Soludo has ordered the repeat of an online teachers’ recruitment examination which was last week marred by network failure.

About 31,000 candidates had applied to sit for the online recruitment examination last week, but most had complained that the system broke down even before they could log in for the examination as a result of network failure.

But in statement yesterday, Soludo announced the cancellation of the examination and ordered a repeat of the exercise to accommodate all.

 In the statement signed on his behalf by his Chief Press Secretary, Christian Aburime, Soludo said: “In line with his objective of ensuring transparency and fairness to all, Anambra State Governor, Prof. Charles Chukwuma Soludo has directed a repeat of the online recruitment exam for Teachers in Anambra State.

“Governor Soludo has therefore, graciously directed the Hon. Commissioner for Education, Prof. Ngozi Chuma-Udeh to conduct a repeat of the exercise to make up for the shortfall in the Saturday 4th of June preliminary Teacher’s Recruitment Examination.

“He has further directed that all expenses for the test be covered by the Government.”

Aburime said against the proposed 5,000 qualified applicants to be shortlisted for CBT exam, the governor had directed that all the over 31000 listed applicants should be given equal chance to participate in a preliminary online exam, before shortlisting the successful applicants for 2nd CBT exam.

He said the mix-up arose from the online examinations website that crashed. He stated that it was not intended as many had insinuated.

“It is in a bid to make up and ensure that all eligible candidates are carried along, that the governor has approved a repeat of the exercise.

“He assures Ndi-Anambra that there their interest will be protected at all time by his administration,” the statement added.