The wife of Abia State Governor, Lady Mercy Orji has an open secret. It is her ability to win battles on her kneel. Adeola Akinremi writes
Eulogies poured for her. She smiled. But her lips did not move. It was almost impossible for her not to be puffed up with the torrents of accolades, but she resisted the air of self-importance and pomposity. She passed the message: pride goes before destruction.


The First Lady of Abia State, Mrs. Mercy Odochi Orji is an unusual woman, whose passion for the weak and the poor truly sets her apart from the others in her ilk across the country. Yes, many other first ladies are into charity. But not the kind of cause that Lady Orji is known to address.


Orji’s rare kind of charity is to the outcasts. That makes her a super philanthropist. But not only that, her style of winning battles on her kneel in a time of scornful politics is an incredible tale of a woman with all the might who shy away from using might.
On Thursday, November 27, when the pages of her life were opened in a new book titled, From Prayer to Praise, not a few who gathered to celebrate Lady Orji acknowledged her role in the transformation of Abia State through the soft power of prayer and succour to the needy. Really, all through the turbulent time that the state went through before and when her husband, Governor Theodore Orji was elected, Mrs. Orji’s life has been a study.


For instance, one of those who spoke at the occasion said, “I can remember that time when she was going round with other prayer leaders in the night to hold vigil for the spiritual sanitisation of Abia State.”


And in a rare kind of event where both the privileged and less-privileged converged on Michael Okpara auditorium within the precinct of the government house to identify with a woman they all call ‘Osinulo’, a blind man, supported by his wife simply stepped forward, grabbed the microphone and said, “I want to thank you for building a house for me and supporting me with funds, when everyone rejected me, including my family. I am supporting this book with the sum of N1,550.”


The audience chimed in with a loud shout of Mrs. Orji’s sobriquet (Osinulo) and it was followed by a thundering applause. Expectedly, tears welled up in her eyes from where she seated and she tried to force it back with the handkerchief in her hand.
But it was fate and nothing else that prepared Lady Orji early in life for such a task. For a woman who lost her parents at a tender age, taking solace in God for the journey ahead was important. “When you have God on your side, victory is always yours, and that was what happened to me,” she said.


To be sure, when her husband, Governor Orji, was incarcerated as a political prisoner on the eve of his election in 2007, Mrs. Orji didn’t look elsewhere for support; she turned to God in prayers.


“As a woman, neck-deep in family tradition of following after God, she exhibited an uncommon submission to God in Prayer. Prayer became her key to living courageously in this fearful world, using same to confront the forces of evil at her doorstep, while her husband was incarcerated miles away and for many months. On that threshold, God gave her the means to fight, not merely to defend her family but to march, all powers that stood against her efforts to serve God. Mercy became a prayer warrior…prayer became an indispensable ingredient in challenging the strongholds of evil machinations. It became the step forward against the gates of hell,” read a part of the biography.


That wasn’t the first time. She had overcome many battles for herself and others on her kneel years before she became a first lady. She said: “I feel overwhelmed and happy at the launching of this book. I don’t even know anything about the process until they came and tell me. So I give God the praise.


“This prayer to praise did not even start today as a wife of the governor. It started way back. I used to be a volunteer in a group and we used to go from one hospital to another going to look for the sick, giving them succour. So it didn’t start today. It has been part of my life to pray and give to the less- privilege.


“And when I became the first lady, I said to myself what can I do with this office and the only thing that came to my mind was to press on with support to the poor and the neglected of our society. God purposely gave us this seat for us to help the less-privilege, pray for a change in our society and promote love among mankind.”


For a woman who spent time studying the life of Winnie Madkizela Mandela who fought alongside her husband, Nelson Mandela, during the apartheid era in South Africa and the life of Coretta Scott King, the wife of the slain African-American civil rights leader, Reverend Martin Luther King Jnr, it was not difficult to understand how she coped when her husband was taken away from her for months by the security operatives.


“My message to fellow women is that they should be prayerful, organise their homes, and help their husbands, especially those in authorities. A wise woman builds, but a foolish woman scatters. If you cannot organise your home, you can’t organise the state and that was the situation before we came. Today, we give praise to God for the change that has taken place,” she said.


Interestingly, Mrs. Orji whose quiet nature and prayer virtue makes her a model to every woman didn’t jump at the opportunity of becoming a first lady, when her husband first mooted the idea of running for the office of a governor. It was her relationship with God that gave her the confidence to say yes to her husband after she had meditated on it.


“Initially, she was unhappy as it did not tally with her wishes and aspirations. She was reluctant and afraid of venturing into the murky waters of the nation’s political game, because politics is characterised with violence, manipulations, intimidation, blackmail, backbiting, campaigns of calumny and other negative tendencies. She overcame her fears and started coping with the demands of a wife of politician. She drew courage and confidence from God and the fact that Chief Theodore Orji, is not just a husband, but a trustworthy and dependable friend and ally,” another part of the biography reads.


One of the authors of Prayer to Praise, a sixteen chapter book on the life of Lady Orji, Mrs. Nnezi Onuoha, a former Director, Television Service at Broadcasting Corporation of Abia and current Special Adviser(Media) to Mrs. Orji, said, “We decided to write the book she’s a woman who has done quite a lot for humanity with humility. If the stories are not compressed into a book, posterity will not smile on us. These are true life stories that time and speed did not permit us to capture in detail.
“Lady Mercy Odochi Orji has a sort of humility and kindness that is second to none. At times she does things that make people around her burst into tears. I can say that she’s just exceptionally kind and loving.”


True, Hannah-May Foundation that Orji founded has become a bulwark for most Abians who continue to turn to her for care. And now, Orji’s prayers have turned to praise in the twilight of her husband’s administration as the governor of Abia State.
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Yansh lickers INC. How is business?

Nah because of orji wife nah him u write this long story