VANGUARD
Apex Igbo socio-cultural body, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, has condemned last week’s reported attempt to arrest the Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, in London, the UK, as a move by political enemies.
Ohanaeze said any plot to embarrass and pull down Peter Obi, because he had decided to legally pursue the mandate believed to have been given him by Nigerians, will continue to fail.
Obi was said to have been 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 held.
In her account of what Obi told her, as narrated in her Facebook account, Prof. Okunna, in the piece she titled: “What Peter Obi is going through: does any human being deserve this type of shocking intimidation and emotional torture?”, narrates:
How it happened at Heathrow
“Today 11/04/2023, I was shocked beyond words to hear from His Excellency, Mr. Peter what he went through when his British Airways plane landed at Heathrow Airport, London, in the early morning of Friday 07/04/2023.
“He was talking to me at the official opening of the Specialist Hospital of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM) Sisters, Nkpor.
“He had arrived at the event after flying in from London, his presence heralded by the usual ‘ear-splitting’ ovation that accompanies him everywhere nowadays.
“As the ‘Most Outstanding Pillar of the Foundation/Hospital’, the Reverend Sisters were full of expectations that he would attend; so were we (members of the Governing Board of the IHM Sisters Healthcare System), although there was also anxiety about whether he would be able to make it, being outside Nigeria.
“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.
“I would never have imagined he would be able to go anywhere so soon after his energy-sapping marathon visits on 06/04 to Paul University, Regina Caeli Hospital and other health facilities, where he went about touching lives in his usual quiet philanthropic manner.
“His whirlwind activities that day in Anambra State and beyond were another eloquent testimony to Peter Obi’s incredible stamina and multi-tasking capacity.
“To be able to fly out of the country that night, made this capacity even more incredible.
“Landing in London, Peter Obi 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.
