Mr Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), was purportedly detained in London by UK immigration officers last Friday.
Obi was detained for hours and questioned by officials when his British Airways plane landed at Heathrow Airport on Friday morning.
Prof Chinyere Okunna, a well-known Mass Communication expert and Deputy Vice Chancellor of Paul University Awka, and an Obi confidant, said this on Wednesday.
Okunna, who worked with Obi as commissioner for information, commissioner for economic planning, and coordinating commissioner for development partners, stated that Obi, who lived honorably in the UK, narrated the ordeal to her in private, and expressed pain about his ordeal and others, which are meant to hound and chase him out of Nigeria.
“I suppose he told me all this confidentially,” Okunna replied. My deepest apologies for ‘breaking’ this confidentially, Your Excellency, but history calls and I CANNOT STAY QUIET.
“Obi spoke to me at the Official Opening of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM) Sisters’ Specialist Hospital in Nkpor.” (on Tuesday). He had flown in from London to attend the ceremony.
“I had no idea he’d left the country until the ovation for his presence in a London church went viral on the Internet.”
“When he arrived at Heathrow Airport and joined the usual line to pass through Immigration, his ordeal began.”
“He was stopped and questioned for a long time before being given a detention note and told to wait for further questioning and investigation.”
“This was extremely unusual for a man who had lived honorably in the UK for many years.”
“In the face of this harassment, some well-meaning Nigerians raised their voices in protest, demanding to know why he was being treated in this manner.”
Okunna said that, in the face of apparent criticism from several Nigerians, immigration officials confirmed that someone in the nation was impersonating Obi.
“The Immigration Officer’s shocking revelation was that his (Obi’s) identity ‘was duplicated.'” This revelation has undoubtedly sounded the alarm.
“This is a very dangerous development for people who are knowledgeable about such matters because the implication is that someone is impersonating Peter Obi.”
“And that someone could implicate Obi in a variety of dubious and even criminal activities, and drag him into a variety of offenses; he could frame Obi for one or more criminal acts.” The terrifying idea of what may occur is unthinkable!!!
“This is the pinnacle of it all for a man who has been subjected to various forms of intimidation and emotional torture: bugging his phone and those of his wife and children; constant surveillance; calling him names; putting him under severe pressure to leave (run away from) the country; falsely accusing him of negative things he knows nothing about, and so on.”
“I could see a man in severe pain and under unbearable stress as he told me his ‘Heathrow tale of woe’ at Nkpor today, who many would expect to be at the point of despair.”
“However, as he confirmed, he is prepared to suffer this pain and is as determined as ever to pursue the path he has chosen to enable him to arrive at the destination that well-meaning people in Nigeria and far beyond expect him to arrive at.”
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