The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, has condemned the attack on former Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu by members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) at the weekend in Germany. Atiku had in a statement acknowledged Ekweremadu as a democrat, a promoter of Igbo interest and advocate of justice and constitutional reform.
Atiku in the statement declared: “The physical assault on the immediate past Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, in Nuremberg, Germany, is an uncivilised and undemocratic action that I condemn in totality.
“I waited to speak privately with Ike before making a public statement and I have expressed my full and total repudiation of the unfortunate incident with him.
“No one deserves such mob action, least of all a man who is a specimen of what a democrat should be; a champion of the rights of the people of the Southeast and Nigeria, and a patriot par excellence.
“Nigerians, and especially, those who were misguided into physically assaulting Senator Ekweremadu, will do well to remember the patriotic roles he played in saving Nigeria from a constitutional crisis in 2010, when there was a lacuna in the Presidency. He and then Senate President David Mark midwifed the Doctrine of Necessity that stabilised the nation. But for that patriotic action, our democracy might have been terminated.
“If those who were involved in that crass action had given due thought to the role Ike has played in nation building, they would have celebrated a man who has made sacrifices for their good.
“To Senator Ekweremadu, I say that my family and I, and indeed most Nigerians, hold you in the highest esteem; an esteem that cannot be shaken by this incident.
“Finally, I call on those behind the assault to turn a new leaf and repudiate violence in all its forms, to seek peace and pursue it and to learn to give honour to whom it is due.”