(Ike Ekweremadu)
EC Ejiogu
IF YOU are travelling from Enuugwu towards Nsukka on the more recently built roadway that goes northwards of the Nike clan, when you get to Ogbeke Nike, on the right side of the road there begins a sprawling vibrated cement blocks perimeter fence that runs parallel to the road all the way for an extensive distance before it meanders endlessly uphill and deep into the forest indicating what is obviously a mindless land-grab bordering on speculation. There’s nothing about this endless undeveloped land-grab that reveals who it actually belongs to. Not even the road-side signage on it that deceptively announces that the sprawling “PARCEL OF LAND BELONGING TO LEGAL PROTECTION COUNCIL” is truly revealing of the individual to whom it actually belongs.
IF YOU are travelling from Enuugwu towards Nsukka on the more recently built roadway that goes northwards of the Nike clan, when you get to Ogbeke Nike, on the right side of the road there begins a sprawling vibrated cement blocks perimeter fence that runs parallel to the road all the way for an extensive distance before it meanders endlessly uphill and deep into the forest indicating what is obviously a mindless land-grab bordering on speculation. There’s nothing about this endless undeveloped land-grab that reveals who it actually belongs to. Not even the road-side signage on it that deceptively announces that the sprawling “PARCEL OF LAND BELONGING TO LEGAL PROTECTION COUNCIL” is truly revealing of the individual to whom it actually belongs.
IT was by coincidental happenstance
that this writer got to know that the actual owner of this sprawling endless
acreage of land is indeed, Ike Ekweremadu, who is also a member of the Nigerian
Senate in Abuja. Mr. Ekweremadu who is from the Ogwu (Agwu) clan, which is located
far away from Nike, on the dilapidated Enuugwu-Umuahia-Port Harcourt
expressway, has been in the Nigerian Senate since 2003. He was for the
four-year duration that ended just this year, the deputy president of Nigeria’s
Senate. On the occasion when Ekweremadu’s ownership of the said sprawl was
disclosed to this writer, the latter had offered a ride to three middle-age
local ladies en route Nsukka. It was during the course of the chit-chat that
they held between them during the journey’s course, which this writer
eaves-dropped on, that suddenly veered onto the subject matter of land-grab
when the car got to and began to speed past the said endless sprawl that those
female free riders revealed that indeed, the said stupendous land-grab belongs
to Ekweremadu.
EKWEREMADU’s encounter Saturday,
August 17 with angry Igbo youth in the city of Nuremberg in faraway Germany
brings to context his politics and his avaricious penchant for using same in
the main, to exclusively feather his personal nest all the way at the expense
of his Igbo race and its destiny in unitary Nigeria. Mouths have wagged and
continue to wag in the bid to cast aspersions on the Igbo youth involved
without regard for the more pertinent issues that are involved as they tie into
the Igbo Question in the Nigeria project vis-a-viz what got Ekweremadu and the
youth, together in that infamous dustup.
For full disclosure, the intention
here by this writer is neither to condone, nor justify what may have transpired
there, indeed happened to Ekweremadu in Nuremberg during that encounter.
Instead, the essence here is to contextualize the encounter, and possibly
proffer an explainer.
SOME OF THE immediate assertions above
tie quite deeply into the raging perception out there amongst many Igbo
regarding Ekweremadu and the claims he makes to Igbo identity and his selfish
exploitation of same in his politics and avaricious pursuit of his narrow
self-interests. The widely held perception out there, which should not be
dismissed as invalid is that he parasites off Igbo identity in his politics at
a time when the anger over the Igbo condition in unitary Nigeria project is
palpable amongst the youth at home and in the diaspora. Anyone who is oblivious
of the truism that most, if not all that constitute today’s Igbo Diaspora were
compelled to emigrate abroad in search
economic sustainance by the dire situation of affairs with regard to the Igbo
in the Nigeria project.
Some of the Igbo who this writer
elicited their views on the subject matter of this piece recalled how
Ekweremadu cried out loud the other time when he was being throttled by minders
of the unitary state in the Nigeria project with the dubious claim that the
latter picked on him simply because he’s Igbo! That out-cry of dissemblance
from him elicited solidarity response from many Igbo, and it probably compelled
his supposed Hausa-Fulani traducers to let up on him at the time.
YET Ekweremadu consistently conducts
himself in ways that convey the impression that he’s mindless of the
existential threat that the Nigeria project and the configuration of its
political economy represent for the Igbo and their destiny as a people since
the end of the shooting phase of the Nigeria-Biafra war in January 1970 and the
events that precipitated it.
Almost all those surveyed for their
opinion by this writer about Ekweremadu voiced the view that his encounter with
angry Igbo youth in Nuremberg, Germany is symbolic of expiatory trials of Nazi
war criminals that took place in that city right after Nazi hostilities where suppressed
in World War II. Some even argued that he encounter could qualify as an attempt
by the former to put Ekweremadu and his politics of predation at the expense of
the Igbo on popular trial.
Some of those who spoke to this writer
went to great length to furnish pointers to buttress their views that
Ekweremadu’s primary motivating focus has been the raw acquisition of wealth
and aggrandizing fame at the expense of Igbo good. One of them pointed out the
placement of giant billboards at strategic locations in the city of Enuugwu
earlier this year to mark his birthday celebration. According to eye-witnesses,
the said billboards touted banal claims that prefixed him as Professor Dr.
Senator Ike Ekweremadu, a professor of law at a university in faraway Louisiana,
in the US. One person who claims he knows Ekweremadu quite well swore that he’s
aware that Ekweremadu hired and retains a special assistant who ghosted to
enable him to acquire two advanced law degrees from a local university in
Enuugwu. Another disclosed that he is always quick to deflate requests from his
constituents who approach him with the pathetic excuse line that he is merely
“in government and not in power in Abuja”. Indeed!
IN THE CONTEXT of Ekweremadu’s
sympathizers who voiced strong views that German authorities in Nuremberg must
identify, arrest and prosecute the youth involved in the encounter, there is
one succinct explainer: Germany’s Nazi past notwithstanding, civil society and
the rule of law are still well and alive in that country for all residents,
citizens and non-citizens alike. Unlike in unitary Nigeria, in Germany, public
protests by aggrieved citizens, and others are allowed and are used to speak
truth to power and its public actor custodians. Leadership responsiveness is still
an integral component of social authority patterns and the practice of
authority in society in democratic Germany.
The implication of the Ekweremadu-Igbo
youth encounter being that the former and his likes have been put on notice by
the latter, and rightly so, that the tide has certainly shifted against selfish
actors in the Igbo public space.
THE VIDEO clips of Ekweremadu in that
encounter found online speak volumes. Clad in an outfit resplendent with the
motif of unitary Nigerian state, he cuts a pathetic picture as he scampered
away in the apparent attempt to seek refuge in a building with his fellow Igbo,
angryand in hot pursuit. One of them can be heard repeatedly calling him a
“useless man”. Then came the frames when he was quickly dragged out of the
building through some distance towards a white sedan car into which he was
pushed and driven away. The evident add up from the drama being the apparent
message from his fellow Igbo that they have had enough of those who find cheap
currency in their destiny as a people.
****Professor EC Ejiogu, formerly at the Centre
for Africa Studies, University of the Free State , South
Africa Nigeria :
Political Evolution and Development in the Niger Basin
This is quite revealing and, definitely, troubling. Many Igbo sons and daughters, including me, have always thought of Ike Ekweremadu as one of "the good ones" among our representatives at the Upper Chamber of the National Assembly.
ReplyDeleteEven when the economic and financial crimes commission recently drew attention to the avaricious life style of Ike Ekweremadu, most of us never believed it, and actually thought that he was being witchhaunted as the most visible personality in top position at the governmental level. Not long ago, there were reports that Ike Ekweremadu bought 22 choice property in many cities of the world, including cities in Nigeria, USA and even in UAE's Dubai.
We thought it was a big joke meant to run down an upright man!
With the current revelation, the shock from the previous one only affirms what the EFCC had long stated. This becomes of much concern especially since Ike Ekweremadu's regional zone has the worst Federal road network in the whole of Nigeria. And this raises further questions: what could have led to the sudden "resting" of the investigation against Ekweremadu of massive corruption? Is it possible that the matter was put to "rest" because Mr. Ekweremadu found a way to reach an agreement with his Fulani masters? Is it possible that Mr. Ekweremadu forcefully seized the land from vulnerable and poor villagers as a way of facilitating the Fulani "RUGALIZATION" project? What could have made Ekweremadu acquire such massive hundreds of square miles of land in Igboland, fenced and fortified at a time like this? Did Ekweremadu collect money from the current government for Fulani settlement in Igboland?
There are too many questions that truly demand answers.
There is no doubt that the Igbo are, indeed, an endangered people in the Lugardian contraption called Nigeria. But it is also true that this endangerment is not the sole making of the outsiders and invaders from Futa Jalon. The greed of our sons is definitely culpable to the dilemma of Nd'Igbo. If the revelations in Prof. Ejiogu's article is remotely true, then Ike Ekweremadu must be seen as a security risk to the Igbo nation.And this also applies to any politician, especially the current govetnors who may have facilitated the takeover of any inch of Igboland under whatever guise. This is why the "Nuremberg trial" seems to be a good beginning, after all, in the project of restoring sanity among the Igbo leadership elites.