Another Open Display Of Disrespect Against President Tinubu By Abia State Government, One Too Many!
In his letter to Christians in Rome, Apostle Paul, in the Bible Book of Romans 13:1-7, admonished Christians in Rome to make themselves submissive to those in authority because those authorities are established by God.
The current Government of Abia State has never believed in the above biblical injunction, as long as President Tinubu is concerned. The Abia State Government has never, at any time, attempted to hide its hatred, contempt and disdain for the person of the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR. The State Government depicts her scorn for Mr President, with reckless abandon!
It has to be recalled that when the current State Government was inaugurated on May 29th, 2023, having prepared for its transition more than two months before that date of inauguration, the State Government, out of deliberate determination to show overt disrespect for President Tinubu, refused to hang the official portrait of Mr President on any Government Ministry, Department or Agency. It took much protest from the Opposition before the Labour Party State Government hung President Tinubu’s Photos, willy nilly.
Despite porous efforts at damage control by the State Government then, the recent calculated attempt by the same Abia State Government to denigrate and humiliate President Tinubu by ridiculously sealing off the premises of No 36 Ojike Lane, Umuahia, which houses the office of President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Partners, does not leave any sane observer without the conclusion that Abia State Government is on a clearly- designed mission to rub shit on the face of the President of the largest democracy in the whole of Africa.
Even though the State Government, a Government that has become increasingly notorious for using tax payers’ money to file all manner of suits against Abians simply and merely for being Members of the Opposition, has speedily but cowardly unsealed the premises, the reasons it has shyly tried to advance for frivolously trying to embarrass Mr President a third time are totally implausible.
To start with, the Abia State Office of Mr President’s Renewed Hope Partners at No 36 Ojike Lane, Umuahia, was commissioned on Thursday (Orie) 24th April, 2025, with pomp and pageantry. It was the talk of the town for weeks before and after the ceremony, with a lot of publicity. It has a large flex of the President conspicuously displayed on the front wall of the building. Could that alone not have made the State Government observe some restraint or, at least, decorum in her zeal to rubbish Mr President?
So, it is no tenable for the State Government to pretend it did not know the premises houses Mr President’s Renewed Hope Partners.
Apart from the inexplicable penchant to insult the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the State Government should have shown some courtesy to Mr President by reaching out to the Deputy Speaker of the 10th House of Representatives, His Excellency, The Rt Hon Benjamin Okezie Kalu, CFR, to inform him that the owner of No 36 Ojike Lane has been in default of statutory obligations since, according to her, 1982.
It was an issue that the State Government should have drawn the attention of the Deputy Speaker to, discussions held and concluded before rushing to embarrass the President by sealing his office.
Equity Global Reporters Ltd wishes to suggest that when it is recalled that the same State Government had last week allegedly unilaterally revoked a Memorandum of Understanding that ‘exists’ between it and a private company only because the company allowed a part of her space, which was even paid for, to be used for President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Partners’ programme, coordinated by the Deputy Speaker, it becomes very certain that the sealing off of No 36 Ojike Lane, Umuahia, is one disrespect for Mr President, too many.
Sir Don Ubani is a former Commissioner for Information and Strategy in Abia State, and Publisher, Equity Global Reporters Ltd.
