I have avoided making any public statements about the Ekweremadu’s since the family got embroidered with organ harvesting scandal which resulted to the incarceration of the Ekweremadu parents .
Few months before his arrest at Heathrow Airport, Ike buried his younger brother Mathias Ekweremadu, he was multiple times a commissioner in the state , and was being propped to take the PDP House of Representatives ticket before his untimely death .
If Ike Ekweremadu was convicted for a crime other than this one , I’d have turned the other way , or even joined the mob in casting aspersions on him .
But in this case he got into trouble trying to save his child , who would not ?
As a parent I understand perfectly how far one can go for his family. And as someone who had lost a child , I also understand perfectly the torture Ike is going through watching his child face death .
Many people say it serves him right , some say he stayed in the senate for too long so he deserved every punishment, some say he failed to build standard hospital in his place so he went to UK for medicals and got into trouble therefore he deserves it . Others are simply angry with rich politicians .
I dare say Ike Ekweremadu is one of the luckiest politicians, and now one of the unluckiest too.
Ike has been LGA Chairman , Chief of Staff, Secretary to the State Government, 4 times Senator and 3 times Deputy Senate President.
When Nnamdi Kanu was jailed by the Federal Government the first time , Ike was among the Igbo Leaders who worked hard and negotiated his release . They took care of his bail and brought him home . Afterwards they called together foremost Igbo Leaders to a meeting in ENUGU where they tried to have an agreement with Kanu . Few weeks after his release Kanu went berserk and declared no elections in Anambra State. He also gradually began to attack people who had helped him .
Ike Ekweremadu was invited to an Igbo ceremony in Germany and was ambushed by IPOB minions, he was assaulted unprovoked. I am yet to make out any crime he ever committed against IPOB that made them single him out .
In ENUGU West Senatorial Zone, even the entire State , Ike Ekweremadu is held way more accountable than the governor. Ironically Ike has much more infrastructure to his name in the zone than the governor of the state . Even so we forgot we had a governor, even the governor joined us in holding Ike accountable, nobody asked about what the governor had done ,, only what has Ike Ekweremadu done ? Ike received attacks for bad roads , collapsed school buildings, lack of hospitals , community crisis , erosion menace , insecurity, everything.
The first time in 2006 Ike Ekweremadu aspired to be governor, he called a meeting of Greater Awgu Zone to discuss his ambition, that angered the then emperor governor Chimaroke Nnamani,he ditched Ike Ekweremadu and appointed Sullivan Chime instead . By a stroke of luck Ike got the Senatorial ticket.
When next he aspired In 2014 to replace Sullivan Chime , he practically had gotten the ticket , Sullivan capitulated and pleaded for face saving . Ike accepted to forgo the ticket which was given to the current underperforming governor, and Ike went back to the senate . The agreement was allegedly that Ugwuanyi would hand over to Ike Ekweremadu.
But the Ugwuanyi however backstepped very early , his body language showed that he’d rather hand over to someone from ENUGU East Zone . In fact in a bid to avoid being outplayed by (Ike like he did Sullivan Chime), Ugwuanyi invited back the disgraced Ebeano whom Sullivan ran out of town to the relief of Ndi Enugu. He threw a big banquet and pledged total submission to the hitherto estranged godfather, they teamed up against Ike and outwitted him . All this while Ike maintained decorum as a gentleman. It took him extreme provocation to voice out how ingratitude had found its way into ENUGU politics , and rued that some politicians could not honour agreements.
Ike lost the Guber ticket to elite conspiracy. Ironically again, the people who denied him ticket based on a phantom zoning agreement which they could never produce any documents to prove , all got their tickets against existing zoning arrangements .
Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi got his Senatorial ticket against zoning, Offor Chukwuegbo, Chimaroke Nnamani, Anayo Onwuegbu etc all grabbed their own tickets against clearly written and signed zoning agreements .
The one that shocked me most was my dear friend and Ike’s protégé Rt Hon Chima Obieze, fine guy man , bright chappy , Chima shockingly publicly went against his mentor and beneficiary claiming that he was now an apostle of zoning, and his conscience would never allow him go against the wishes of the people. But Chima grabbed PDP ticket to return to the House of Assembly for a record 3rd Term against existing zoning in his LGA. In fact no other PDP ticket in the state maintained zoning except the Governorship, it was clear Ike Ekweremadu was targeted by the establishment who were uncomfortable by his rising profile .
The worst among them was Omeiheukwu whose company was used to execute almost all projects attracted by Ekweremadu and his protégé Tobi Okechukwu of the House of Representatives. Omeiheukwu remains the biggest beneficiary of Ike’s long stay at the National Assembly. All the executed , half executed , poorly executed and abandoned projects were all done by his company AMBIZ Construction. When Ike failed to grab the DSP Position for the 4th time , Omeiheukwu defected to the sitting governor and continued his business unhindered .
So when Gburu Gburu began to recruit people he would use to undermine Ike Ekweremadu, Onwuegbu was more than available. First he made him the leader of Oji River LGA against the norm that the highest political office holder in the zone would become the leader . This pitched Onwuegbu against Rt Hon Don Uzogbado who was the deputy speaker of ENUGU House of Assembly and the highest ranking political office holder in Oji River LGA. Omeiheukwu made sure Don did not get a 3rd tenure even when all his contemporaries did , in fact he messed badly with Don and never allowed him space to enjoy his portfolio as the rightful leader of the LGA.
Onwuegbu did not take the task of undermining Ekweremadu lightly, he called all sorts of meetings and did multiple press releases to castigate Ike’s ambition. He made sure to put his own people as party delegates and mobilized them to vote against Ike in the primaries .
The build up to ENUGU State PDP Governorship primaries was a period of high wire politics . Propaganda, betrayals , deals , bullying, extortion, segregation, name it . Ugwuanyi is a dealsman , he would make you an offer that is hard to reject just to do some dirty acts like publicly shaming and disparaging high profile personalities that have done you no wrong , some of us were made these offers and quite a few rejected them. Those who took the deals were rewarded with tickets , money , positions and a lot of times nothing tangible! Ugwuanyi disappointed many he made promises to, this led to a lot of disgruntlement among PDP loyalists . The party went into last election in very low morale , and Labour Party Enugu State made the best of this .
I am happy to let y’all know that all those that got their tickets against zoning after claiming they were champions of zoning lost to Labour Party in the state . Ugwuanyi lost , his godfather Chimaroke lost , Jack Solo lost , Offor Chukwuegbo lost , Anayo Onwuegbu lost , Chima Obieze lost etc
At the end of the election PDP lost 7/8 in House of Representatives, lost 2/3 in the senate and 14/24 in the State House of Assembly.
They brazenly rigged the Governorship election as a matter of survival.
Back to Ike Ekweremadu, I dare say that his chi has blessed him for too long , and now he is going through this harrowing experience. Terrible. Knowing Ike Ekweremadu well , his biggest heartbreak would be his families involvement in this mess . If his wife and daughter were not affected by this whole thing Ike would have fought better , and if the worst had happened as is the case he would have gallantly accepted his faith . But here we are , his daughter is very sick facing death , while himself and his wife are in jail , not one of them available to help the kid fight for her life .
I do not in any way believe that Ike deserves what he got . In fact I am very sad about his predicament. Yes Ike is a Nigerian politician and they come with all shades of character and integrity challenges, but he deserves better . Ike could actually be rated far above most politicians. Ike is not brutal , he is not treacherous, and he is not high handed . Ike also has large numbers of projects to his name all over the south east and south south . I can claim that no other National Assembly member could boast of as much projects as Ike and his protégé Tobi Okechukwu. Go and verify. And this is no sycophancy by the ways , there is no use for that now as both men have become politically irrelevant, just stating a fact . In fact my brother Engr Chijioke Okereke who would be replacing Tobi in June would be inheriting arguably highest number of outstanding projects from him . The national assembly has justifiably moved the execution of 2023 Appropriation to June 2023 , meaning that the next National Assembly would be responsible for those projects , my brother would be taking off on a grand note .
Ike has been good to so many individuals, he helped secure many appointments, and he appointed so many himself and paid them well , Ike helped many get juicy contracts including Onwuegbu who executed projects running into trillions over the years , he helped Sullivan return for second tenure when all the elites came after him and nearly upstaged him , he helped Gburu Gburu become governor for 2 terms , helped Gil Nnaji become senator for 2 terms and land juicy committees , he helped Obieze become an assembly member and made many commissioner. Ike was a nice man to his friends. And he helped a lot of poor people. Ike had a program for widows in the zone and he took care of all of them . He had adult literacy program which helped educate thousands of adults that missed opportunities to become educated at childhood. Ike had so many empowerment programs under his foundation. I know about so many people that got federal government jobs through him , people who became judges and permanent secretary by his assistance. Ike built a high profile political team that placed ENUGU West ahead of all the other zones in the state , which attracted the envy of Ugwuanyi, and he made sure he collapsed that structure. Ike bought a water rig which he commissioned to drill water borehole in all localities and over a hundred of that project had been done before he landed into trouble.
But Ike Ekweremadu could also have done more if he was not a typical Nigerian politician, he is not without his own shortcomings, none of which would have made him to deserve what has befallen his family.
I carefully avoided talking about the supposed victim cause I do not have all the facts . But one thing is clear , lies were told . The boy is not as young as was initially claimed . I do not know their agreement too , but donating one kidney would not kill a healthy adult . The crime was not the proposed kidney harvesting,but coming short of laid down laws guiding such procedure in the UK. This is a country of laws , not like one other country I know .
However the hypocrisy of the British Government must be called out here . This is a country that condones political and economic criminals from 3rd world countries. Recall that the British Prime Minister was the first to congratulate Tinubu even while Int’l observes were reporting that the election came short of being free or fair . Reports have also shown that properties were purchased in the UK by corrupt embezzlement of Nigerian government funds by government officials , some of these were even being investigated and were repurchased by the incoming first family. The British Government cannot claim to be ignorant of the crimes being committed on their soil , no word or action from them ! The role the crown 👑 played during the Nigerian Civil war which led to the death of millions of women and children through starvation and deprivation has remained inglorious. The silence of Nigerian presidency in this matter affecting a sitting senator and someone as high profile as Ekweremadu points at some thing more sinister going on at the background .
I wish the Ekweremadu’s God’s grace in this trial period. May our Lord Jesus Christ who remains the Odi Eshi of the down trodden give them grace to withstand this tribulation, Amen
Dr McGinger Ibeneme MBBS
Rock Palace, Achi ENUGU State
6/05/2023