Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State is soliciting participation in the burial of Justice Chukwudifu Oputa and has accused the family of going it alone.
Chukwudifu Oputa
When TheNiche phoned up Oputa’s first son, Charles, popularly known as Charly Boy, to find out whether there was anything in the father’s will or a family order barring politicians from coming to his burial, he said he simply wants to ensure that the burial is done with the respect befitting the status of his father.
“My father did not say so. My father is for everybody; he lived for justice and for everybody. My concern is that I want everything to be done with respect and dignity. I just don’t want it to be done like politics,” Charly Boy said.
Okorocha government expressed displeasure that the burial arrangement announced by the family did not have its input and warned against politicising it, because the late jurist represented something remarkable and exemplary in Nigeria’s judiciary.
A statement issued by the government said its attention was drawn to the burial programme published in some national dailies by the family, signed by Charly Boy.
It complained that the programme “did not go down well” with it because the government “had shown enough interest right from when the man was sick up to the time he died.”
The statement, signed by Sam Onwuemeodo, Special Assistant to Governor, recalled that Okorocha had “told the world” that the government would do everything to give Oputa “a somewhat state burial, befitting of his stature.”
It complained that reducing the burial arrangement totally to an Oputa family affair is unacceptable to the government, which has “given N20 million to the family for preliminary arrangements.”
According to the statement, the government is waiting to meet with the family to draw up a comprehensive burial programme that would “demonstrate what the hero of the bench had stood for, but surprisingly the family unilaterally drew up a programme of events for the burial, which is not what Nigerians expected.
“The government had expected that the family would liaise with it to come up with a burial arrangement or programme that would suit what [Oputa] represented in Nigeria and Imo state in particular.”
The statement explained that 24 hours after the death became public, Okorocha was at the resident of Oputa in Oguta, where he told journalists that the state government would meet with the family to plan a befitting burial.
It lamented that the family has personalised the burial plan either because it does not know the value of Oputa or ignored the fact that he is a positive part of Nigeria’s history.
It advised the family “not to politicise” the burial of Oputa, “because he was not a politician” and advised it not to reduce the burial to a family affair, as “that would be most uncharitable to such a great man.”
