Flashback to August 17, 2019, a piece of very disturbing news filtered in that a frontline Igbo son, the then deputy president of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu was mobbed while attending an Igbo cultural festival in Germany.
This news was quickly followed by video evidence of the sad event, a video that set off ripples across the globe.
This unfortunate event quickly spread fear in the entire southeast region of Nigeria and provided cannon fodder for the criminal elements that were terrorising the region to up their ante and deepen the scourge of physical and mental siege on Ndi Igbo.
The end result was people abandoning their businesses every Monday for fear of the unknown and the festival of wanton kidnappings and payment of ransoms that followed.
Since then and to date, Igbo leaders have made it a point of duty to avoid any Igbo cultural-related event in Germany and in fact every other country outside Nigeria in a bid to avoid the ‘Ekweremadu treatment’.
Fast forward to Saturday, August 5th, 2023, when the viral video of the Senator representing Anambra South Senatorial District, Senator Dr Ifeanyi Ubah emerged where he was seen happily beating the drum, in a cultural event in the same Germany surrounded by joyful faces of Ndi Igbo resident in the country.
Senator Dr. Senator Dr. Patrick Ifeanyi Ubah ‘s deliberate activities in the past few months, which started with his call for an end to the Monday sit-at-home practice in Nnewi, have since been resonating with two messages:
The first message is to the rest of the country; that the Igbo man merely observes the sit-at-home as a result of the inability of the federal and the various state governments in the Southeast to provide the necessary security for our people to go about their businesses every Monday without fear of molestation.
The second message is from the Igbo community; that Ndi Igbo are in dire need of credible leaders that they will rally behind to lead them out of the present insecurity quagmire in the region.
On our arrival in Frankfurt, Germany, Friday morning, as I walked into the elevator of the hotel where we lodged, I beheld a writing on the glass interiors of the elevator with the following inscription:
“Eat some breakfast , then change the world.”
Indeed, Senator Dr. Ifeanyi Ubah’s decision to bell the cat and drive the process of restoring security in the Southeast region is a hugely welcome development.
This is why many notable Ndi Igbo both at home and in diaspora have been calling Dr Ifeanyi Ubah to express their gratitude and support.
Senator Patrick Ifeanyi Ubah ‘s efforts in this regard, including the visit to Nnamdi Kanu in the DSS facility, his close interactions with his personal lawyers and family, as well as the efforts being made behind the scene by several Igbo stakeholders to facilitate his release, are all testaments to the fact that the prevalent insecurity and the capital flight ravaging the region shall soon become a thing of the past.
May I use this medium to once again express my wish, which is also the prevalent feeling of every Onye Igbo that the Southeast governors should do more by replicating the pilot security architecture put in place by Senator Ubah in Nnewi in their various states.
Indeed, when the selfless is in power, the people rejoice!
Expect more updates.
By Kamen Chuks Ogbonna
Frankfurt, Germany
