It’s ‘incredibly absurd’ to blame Ekweremadu for insecurity in Southeast, Senate President tells IPOB

Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, has described as absurd and unacceptable the attack on the former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu.

Ekweremadu was to give a keynote address at the second Igbo Annual Cultural Festival and Convention organised by Ndi-Igbo community in Germany when an angry mob of Biafra agitators stormed the venue and manhandled him.

The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), in a statement on Saturday, had said its members attacked the senator, who represents Enugu West, for being an instigator of Operation Python Dance.

“Today being the 17th day of August 2019 the Nuremberg IPOB family in Germany in keeping with the long standing directive from our leader to hound all instigators of Operation Python Dance, is glad to report that Ike Ekweremadu was confronted and duly hounded out of a so-called New Yam Festival event in Germany,” it said.

Reacting to the attack in a press statement on Sunday, Senator Lawan condemned it, saying that it was “incredibly absurd for anybody to blame the distinguished Senator for the violent criminal activities in his home base, the purported reason cited by the mob for the bewildering attack.”

READ ALSO: IPOB attack on Ekweremadu an embarrassment to the country —Nigerian govt

”Senator Ekweremadu, like all his distinguished colleagues in the ninth assembly of the Senate, is concerned about the insecurity and other challenges in that area and other parts of Nigeria.

“Senator Ekweremadu has also been at the forefront of the patriotic efforts to find lasting solutions to the challenges.”

The senate president further described the assault as an act that shamefully debased Nigerian value system as a civilised society, adding that such act ”is most reprehensible and should be condemned by all right-thinking Nigerians.”

The statement added: “The barbaric attack on Senator Ekweremadu at a forum to which he was invited to contribute to charting a course for the progress and happiness of Ndigbo debase our values as civilised people.”

While admonishing Ekweremadu not to be deterred by the incident, Lawan charged German authorities to identify those involved in the ”despicable act” so that the law can take its course against them.

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