Oputa’s burial not Charly Boy Show — Charles Oputa

  

Nigerian entertainer and musical artiste, Charles Oputa, popularly known as CharlyBoy, has reacted to reports that he excluded the Imo State Government from the burial arrangements for his late father, Justice Chukwudifu Oputa.

In a telephone interview with our correspondent on Friday, Oputa said his major focus was on ensuring that his late father had a befitting burial.

He said “I am not ready to start discussing anything; I want to give my father the burial that befits his status as a gentleman and a man of peace and dignity. I am not going to start talking back and forth about issues. This is not Charly Boy’s show.”

One of the newspapers (not Punch) had reported that the Imo State government and the family of the late Justice Oputa seemed to be having problems over the burial arrangement for the legal icon.

According to the report, the Oputa family released a burial programme endorsed by Charles Emeka Oputa (Charly boy) on Tuesday which did not seem to go down well with the state governor, Rochas Okorocha, who allegedly flayed the family for reducing the ceremony to a family affair.

Speaking through his Senior Special Assistant on Media, Sam Onwuemoedo, Okorocha was reported to have noted that the family ought to liaise with the government so that they could come up with a burial arrangement or programme befitting of the late Justice.

Okorocha said, “Reducing the burial arrangement of the late statesman to a family affair is unacceptable to the Imo State Government.” He added that the late Oputa represented remarkable and exemplary leadership in Nigeria and as such deserved a befitting burial.

When asked if he had approached the state government to help with the burial, CharlyBoy replied, “I don’t need to approach anybody, if they want to help; they should come to us, like some of my friends have done. They ask what they can do and the plans they have, if their plans tie in with the programmes of the family, we will adopt them.

“We do not want a situation where people will say because he was a statesman, they have to plan this and plan that without consulting with members of the family. You know government thing is done anyhow; we don’t want things to be done anyhow in my father’s burial.”