From Chuks Onuoha, Umuahia
Abia State Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Tony Ukasoanya has said he recruited Theodore Orji to join Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu’s administration when he (TA Orji) had “only one rickety 504 car and lived in a flat that had no ventilation.”
Ukasoanya said further that TA Orji’s “boast today of being a billionaire with assets all over Umuahia and beyond is nothing but foolishness” and added that “time will soon come when Abians would press on him to give account of his stewardship to them.”
Ukasoanya was reacting to a news report credited to T.A Orji, where the former governor called him names, one of which was that Ukasoanya was coming beggarly to him and he was paying him N1 million monthly, as well as gave him a Jeep.
The PDP boss said the former governor knows him as someone who can never go begging. “TA Orji knew me as a personality that will never go begging up to the last day of my life.
“It is interesting that he was paying me N1 million every month and gave me a Jeep, which was my entitlement as a government appointee, not from his personal pocket.
“He knew very well that I have companies which I worked hard to earn before 1990.”
Ukasoanya said he was never a beggar to the former governor and that he only served in his cabinet as a political appointee.
Ukasoanya, who spoke to Daily Sun, in Umuahia, dismissed TA Orji’s claim that he never sent memos to him as governor while he lasted as an appointee under him.
“If I did not send memos to him, why was I paid N1 million monthly and given an official Jeep. Why were we together for more than 12 hours on daily basis, what were we discussing if not memos I brought to him?”
Ukasoanya said Senator Orji has not responded to all the allegations he levelled against him because the former governor knew him as “a very comfortable man ever before he (TA Orji) became a governor.
“In his own case, I recruited him to join Orji Kalu’s administration when he had a rickety 504 car and lived in a flat without ventilation.
“Today, he can boast of being a billionaire and having assets all over Umuahia and other places.
“A day shall come when he would be called upon to tell Abians what and what he did to earn all the assets,” he said.
Ukasoanya also accused TA Orji of illegally acquiring many state property through proxies, saying he would give account of his stewardship to the state one day.