How Peter Obi was impersonated, detained and released by UK Immigration — Prof. Okunna

 

By Obiora Ifoh, Abuja, Pamela Eboh Awka, Phil Okose, Onitsha,

 

United Kingdom, UK immigration officials have alleged that someone is impersonating the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, LP, Mr. Peter Obi in the country.

This was revealed during an alleged detention of Obi in Lindon by the UK immigration officers when Nigerians who knew him raised an eye over his detention.

Obi was said to have been detained for hours, and interrogated by the officials, after his British Airways plane landed in Heathrow Airport on Friday morning

Giving insight to the development on Wednesday, a Mass Communications scholar, and Deputy Vice Chancellor of Paul University Awka, who is also a confidant of Obi, Prof Chinyere Okunna said, “I suppose he told me all this confidentially. My very sincere apologies, Your Excellency, for ‘breaking’ this confidentiality, but History beckons and I CANNOT KEEP QUIET.

“Obi spoke to me at the Official Opening of the Specialist Hospital of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM) Sisters, Nkpor (on Tuesday). He had arrived at the event after flying in from London.

 

“I actually had no idea he had travelled out of the country, until the ovation over his presence in a London Church went viral on the Internet.

 

“He arrived at Heathrow Airport and joined the usual queue to pass through Immigration, and that was when his ordeal began: He was stopped and questioned for a long time and subsequently handed a detention note and told to wait for further interrogation and investigation.

 

“This was terribly unusual for a man who had lived honourably in the UK for a long time.

 

“In the face of this harassment, some well-meaning Nigerians, knowing who he is, raised their voices in protest, demanding to know why he was being treated that way.”

 

Okunna revealed that the face of seeming protest by some Nigerians, the immigration officials revealed that someone was impersonating Obi in the country.

 

“The shocking revelation by the Immigration Officer was that his (Obi’s) identity “was duplicated”. This revelation has definitely set off alarm bells.

 

“For people who are knowledgeable about such matters, this is a very dangerous development because the implication is that someone is impersonating Peter Obi.

 

“And that someone could implicate Obi in all manner of dubious and even criminal activities, and rope him into any number of offences; he could get Obi framed for one criminal act or another. The frightening scenario of what can happen, is unimaginable!!!

 

 

“This is the height of it all for a man who has been under sundry intimidation and emotional torture: Bugging of his phone and those of his wife and children; keeping him constantly under surveillance; calling him names; putting him under severe pressure to leave (run away from) the country; wrongly accusing him of negative things he knows absolutely nothing about etc.

 

“As he was telling me his ‘Heathrow tale of woe’ at Nkpor today, I could see a man who was in severe pain and and under unbearable stress, who many would expect to be at the point of despair. But, as he confirmed, he is ready to suffer this pain and is as determined as ever to pursue the path which he has chosen to enable him arrive at the destination which well-meaning people in Nigeria and far far beyond are expecting him to arrive at.”

The first female Professor  of Mass Communication who worked with Obi as commissioner for information, commissioner for economic planning and coordinating commissioner for development partners said Obi who lived honourably in the UK narrated the ordeal to her in private, and expressed pain about his ordeal, and others, meant to hound a d chase him out of Nigeria.

However, There was pandemonium at the Labour Party (LP) headquarters on Wednesday, when some state chairmen of the party chased the Lamidi Apapa led faction of the national working committee (NWC) away from the national headquarters of the party in Abuja.

The internal wrangling within the LP took a turn for the worse last week when a faction, aided by regular policemen stormed the party’s National Secretariat located at Utako, to take control of the building.

The group, made up of seven members of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the Party, installed the National Vice-Chairman (South), Lamidi Bashir Apapa, as the acting chairman of the party, replacing Julius Abure.

They said they were acting on the judgement of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court which restrained Julius Abure from parading himself as the National Chairman of the party.

On Friday however, the 36 state chairmen of the party forced their way into the party’s headquarters, insisting that Abure remained the party’s leader.

But speaking to Journalists, on Wednesday in front of the office gate, High Chief Kehinde Rotimi, chairman of LP in Kwara State and the chairman of all the chairmen forum, LP Nigeria, said him and his colleagues had arrived for a meeting but were locked out of the party’s secretariat and that when the Apapa-led faction arrived, they (the state chairmen) also refused to let them in, forcing everyone to remain outside,

When the Apapa group made attempt to force their way in, the state chairman who are more in number over powered them and forced them to flee in their vehicles.

“We have been here for quite some days now, for screening of some of our gubernatorial candidates for the forth coming election in Bayelsa, Kogi and Imo State. We were at the screening yesterday when we learnt that some people brought themselves to this office yesterday to do screening for candidates when we heard that, we said that that is an aberration because they do not have the locus to do that. And I am a member of a screening committee where we screened so many candidates yesterday, so I do not know how they manipulated one or two candidates to come here yesterday and impersonated some of the candidates so that’s why we came here. On getting to our secretariat, we wanted to hold a meeting and we discovered it was under lock and key. So we met some DSS men and some vigilantes groups, some thugs and miscreants and they said they asked them to lock the Secretariat. So in the course of discussing that, the legal committee led by Apapa came around and were trying to engage us, and their thugs were almost attacking us and we resisted every temptation to cause commotion and crises because we know the case is in Court, any thing in court you don’t discuss it and we don’t want to commit contempt of court and that’s why we now said okay, what do we do, let’s stay here. So they could not enter, we too, could not enter.

 

“But we know by tomorrow, every legal process will be completed and I know that by the time the court gives the normal ruling, because when you accuse someone of an offense, especially criminal offense, the person must be heard according to session 36 of the Nigerian constitution. In this case, you accuse four principal officers of the party of a very serious offense but they have not been heard by the court, the next thing we are hearing is, they should stop parading themselves as officers of LP. And we are part of the chairmen council, which is a very integral part of NEC who have the final authority to rectify any decision taken by the party. We have not met and we told them, go and wait for the court to decide, they don’t want to do that, they are are taking laws into their hands. Everyday they keep coming here when they discovered we tracked for an assignment, they came here quickly to come and cause trouble.” He stated.

 

Speaking further Rotimi said, “Okay let even say the truth, if you are barring the chairmen and maybe two or three others from entering the Secretariat, the state chairmen were not barred. They are not covered by that order. So, we have a right to enter our Secretariat. So that means these people have some other ulterior motive. They have been calling our chairmen to come and support them but we refused, we say this is not right”

 

Reacting to the incident, LP former Youth leader, Anslem Eragbe who was suspended by the NWC  said they were by this saying that they were merely acting in accordance with the party’s constitution and lamented the bad treatment given to the interim national chairperson, Apapa.

In a related development ,Apex Igbo socio-cultural organization, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, has condemned recent attempt to arrest the Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, in London, the UK, blaming the move on political enemies.

Ohanaeze said that any plot to embarrass and pull down Obi, because he had decided to legally pursue the mandate freely given him by Nigerians, will continue to fail.

Obi was reportedly interrogated at Heathrow Airport, London, on April 7, over his identity.

Obi disclosed this to longtime ally, Prof. Stella Okunna, who served under him in many capacities when he was the governor of Anambra State.

The sole aim of faking Obi’s identity was to use his name to commit crime in London and other parts of the world so as to get him implicated in dubious and criminal activities and rope him into any number of offences to get him out of the political space, Ohanaeze  noted.

Reacting to the saga, Ohanaeze Ndigbo condemned “the embarrassment and evil plots to rope Peter Obi”, insisting that all of them will fail.

 

Speaking through its National Publicity Secretary, Dr. Alex Chidozie Ogbonnia Ohanaeze said:

 

“It is very unfortunate for those who want to rope in Obi and embarrass him. However, it was good it happened. After this, there will not be such a thing again anywhere in the world as they have been exposed.

 

“They have exposed their plots to the whole world. But whoever is playing such is wasting time and energy.

 

“It is very clear to the world that the man is a man of integrity and law abiding, who had been pursuing his mandate legally. So, any plot to rope him and embarrass him will continue to fail. They are being exposed.

 

“It is unfortunate that some Nigerians still want us back wards. But we will resist it, Nigerians will resist it, the youths will resist it because they want a future”.

.Nigerian leaders don’t understand importance of health, education -Obi

 

 

The Presidential candidate of Labour Party, LP, Mr. Peter Obi, Tuesday, lamented that Nigerian leaders failed to understand the importance of health and education to the people they rule.

 

He made the Lamentation in the premises of Immaculate Heart of Mary, IHM Sisters’ Convent, Nkpor, Idemili North Local Government Area, Anambra State, as the Archbishop of Onitsha Catholic Archdiocese and Metropolitan Archbishop of Onitsha Ecclesiastical Province, Most Rev. Valerian Maduka Okeke, performed the official opening of the newly completed IHM Specialist Hospital, Nkpor.

 

The ceremony which commenced with a concelebrated high mass officiated by Archbishop Okeke himself and assisted by the Catholic Bishop of Orlu Diocese, Most Rev. Augustine Ukwuoma and his Aguleri counterpart, Bishop Denis Isizoh, also featured free medical treatments to some patients, as well as freewill donations from eminent personalities in attendance.

 

In his homily during the mass, Archbishop Okeke charged the hospital administrators to be focused and maintain a standard of medical attention to their patients, adding that they should also maintain a moderate billing system so as not to scare their patients but at the same time generate enough funds to pay their staff and sustain their running costs.

 

Archbishop Okeke who received most outstanding pillar of support award at the occasion, also charged the management staff not to engage themselves in unnecessary power tussle thereby leaving their patients to suffer like the grass in a place where two elephants are fighting.

 

“Service of excellence is very vital to the success of every sector. It is good to always have a good packaging. Packaging is part of the service of excellence but excellent service itself is more important in every sector”, said the Archbishop.

 

Obi, who was honoured as most outstanding  pillar of foundation by the hospital management, had while handing over a N2 million cheque to the hospital management, commended Archbishop Okeke for his consistency in maintaining  a healthy and education friendly Archdiocese.

 

“The problem we have in our society today is that our leaders do not understand the importance of health and eduction, otherwise if they do, they would have placed health and eduction on top priority, knowing fully well that a healthy and educated nation is second to a developed country of the world”, he stated

 

Dr. A B C Orjiakor, a member of the IHM Sisters’ Healthcare System Board, who doubled as chairman of the occasion and also received outstanding support award, commended sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary for their efforts in expanding the hospital from a mere medical clinic to a specialist hospital, within a space of years.

 

Orjiakor urged them to liaise with the state government in ensuring that the hospital is functioning optimally in the service of God and humanity.

 

The Superior-General of IHM, Rev. Mother Mary Claude Oguh and the Chief Executive Officer, CEO of the hospital, Rev. Sister Maria Nkiruka Okafor, recalled that Archbishop Charles Heerey who founded IHM in 1937, did not rest on his oars until he established Boromeo hospital and by extension the IHM clinic which has now metamorphosed into a specialist hospital.