Nurnberg Pounding of Sen. Ike Ekweremadu: Signs of What to Come. By Ebuka Onyekwelu

Senator Ekweremadu is someone who has shown to have mastery of political maneuver and has for a period of almost 20 years actively deployed his craft and contrive to remain at the epicenter of Nigeria’s Senate. Over these years, having risen from the local government politics to state and then national politics, Sen. Ekweremadu is rightly an asset, a national archive and very definitely a constructive persona in serious debates or discuss on policy and governance. Even so to Enugu state and the entire Igbo nation. Having served this long, Sen. Ekweremadu has mastered the murky waters of Nigerian politics reasonably one would say, such that he was hardly in a wrong company. But Nurnberg Germany is not Nigeria and most undeniably, unyielding to Sen. Ekweremadu’s political invisibility.

To be very clear, the beating given Ike Ekweremadu is a most offensive, discourteous, terrible and impudence of unimaginable proportions. I also think that it is a slight on the organizers of the Igbo cultural event which he attended in Nurnberg Germany. It therefore ought to be condemned by all rational humanbeings. That is certainly not a way to engage a public office holder. There is a standard practice and mob action or street fighting is not one of the ways to engage leaders. That said, however, one must admit that there is a growing insouciance among many Nigerians. They can’t just seem to understand the various distinctions among government offices and act accordingly. For instance, Sen. Ike Ekweremadu in his capacity as a senator should be assessed solely on the basis of performance as a senator. He should be queried on the number of bills, motions, quality contributions he has been able to put forward in the senate. He ought to be judged based on how he took matters affecting his home state and senatorial district to be precise, as well as other matters of national or regional importance and how he made efforts to draw the attention of Nigerian government to those issues. As a senator, Ekweremadu’s responsibility is to his constituents and inversely, they are the ones who can say if he is representing them well or not. Anything outside this, is out of place because in reality, he cannot stop the insecurity the abusers mentioned. He has no such power to.

Are Public Officers Targets of Unjust Attacks?

I figured that much of what happens as engagement of our leaders are full-fledged ignorance parading as bravery. It also does not mean one can do just everything. Being in government does not mean one does not make legitimate money and only has to steal from the government coffers or that one cannot send his kids to any where to get an education. It goes without mentioning that Nigeria has a very special case of maladministration, at all levels. Indeed, very terrible and visionless leadership. However, the focus of most Nigerians while assessing their leaders is terribly ridiculous because most of us are either too ignorant or too petty to focus on real issues. If a public officer has a kid schooling outside Nigeria, does that explain why we have poor leadership or why the country seems to not progress? So how about millions of Indians in American schools and the positive impact on India? If we prefer to talk about wrist watch or sunshade is that why the country is failing? How about South Korea that encouraged public officers to take off 10% from contracts but must do it according to standard? So you see, we are very interested in unimportant things; these are the exact things that are consuming most Nigerians, occupying debates and supposed meaningful discuss for good governance, leaving out serious issues completely. How will mobbing Ekweremadu change his job description as a senator? What is happening is terrifying. People whose understanding of governance and process is far underdeveloped, are becoming assertive and incorrigible, and they are not just only trying to popularize these strange and utter ignorance, they have taken a step further to actually implement same.  We all should be worried. We are gradually approaching a point where private people may be mobbed for wearing good and expensive clothes or people’s houses destroyed or their cars vandalized because there are many hungry people and yet they are living fine. The way we are going, we may soon arrive there. We must appreciate the fact that there is a thin line between good intention and terrorism. No doubt, it is good intention for those who have more, to give to those who don’t have or have less, but, is it right? Just or fair?

It is of course not in doubt that leadership has eluded us in Nigeria and there is high level frustration among Nigerians all over the world. Apparently Nigerians outside Nigeria have two demons to deal with; the demon of persistent crass bad leadership at home which takes a toll on their private pockets through steady remittance back home and the challenges of living as a foreigner in another man’s country.  The import is that no Nigerian is free from the bondage of failed governance in Nigeria, no matter where they run to. In consequence, the action taken against Ekweremadu is not necessarily an IPOB arranged action. It is a response to these frustrations albeit misdirected. In Nigeria, we have similar issues happening daily, where people misdirect their action or aggression which naturally result in failure to meet the desired end point. Similarly, the IPOB  group in Germany messed with a golden opportunity to properly engage Sen. Ike Ekweremadu, just as we often miss the opportunity to engage our leaders meaningfully.

We must all be on the lookout, because the days ahead may be rough for many Nigerian politicians and possibly many wealthy Nigerians who often travel outside Nigeria on diverse occasions. The aggression is so loud and self evident and if it is well expressed, then it would have triggered some positive impact in political leadership in Nigeria. However, the supposition, perhaps trend, rooted in gross misconception of governance which primarily sees a public officer as an enemy of the people, just for being a public officer, is vague, intolerable and smacks of mass terrorism instead of mass action, which is characteristic of democracy. For in truth, if what happened in Nurnberg was about good governance delivery, then Sen. Ike Ekweremadu should have been subjected to proper assessment by his constituents and the outcome of this assessment will determine how he is engaged.