•Ekweremadu
LAGOS (Press Release) – Ndigbo Lagos, the umbrella body of Igbo Organisations in Lagos, expresses shock and consternation on the events of Saturday 18th August 2019 in far away Nuremberg, Germany, which witnessed the dastardly assault on the person of Senator Ike Ekweremadu. Those elements of IPOB who have claimed responsibility for this attack should hide their faces in shame.
Ndigbo Lagos in making this condemnation relies on our basic values as Ndigbo which demand and extol respect for leadership and the elderly. That same value system also demands deployment of wisdom and tact (‘ako na uche’) in all our public engagements. That means applying sensibility and dignity in expressing disagreement and anger.
Senator Ekweremadu was on a noble mission bringing Ofo Igbo and love to our kits and kin who despite being on sojourn was keeping the Igbo sacred tradition of celebrating our God by giving thanks to him for a new life as symbolised by the New Yam Festival.
Clearly Ike Ekweremadu is an established statesman in his own right, a national leader and by age, of a father-status to many of his attackers.
By physically manhandling the Distinguished Senator and removing his cap those “miscreants” lost purpose, over-reached themselves and shamed the Igbo Nation.
It is in the inviolability of known values that an Igbo saying states that a young person who fells the father in a wrestling match would not only have committed sacrilege but shall also be blinded by the warted loins-of-age.
We at Ndigbo Lagos join millions of Ndigbo and indeed Nigeria to condemn without equivocation what happened yesterday.
Ozo Emezina!!!
Signed:
Gen Obi Umahi (Rtd)
President General
Ndigbo Lagos.