The Chairman of the South-East Governors Forum and governor of Ebonyi State, David Umahi has lamented how he was embarrassed and humiliated in New York City during the just concluded 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
Governor Umahi made this known while addressing a mammoth crowd of Ebonyi people who attended the 59th anniversary of Nigeria and Ebonyi state at 23, that took place at the Pa Ngele Oruta township stadium, Abakaliki capital of Ebonyi state on Tuesday, October 1st, 2019.
According to him, while he accompanied President Mohammadu Buhari to the UNGA meeting, he among others were specially singled out, humiliated and searched thoroughly, simply because they are Nigerian.
Hence, the governor warned against speaking ill of President Buhari and governors of various states in the country, noting that castigating the President will not add any value to the progress of the country. Umahi said:
“Castigating leaders openly will not add any value to what we seek rather our eyes should be on the ball.
“We must as Nigerians do everything to uphold our cultural value and better ourselves outside the country. The way we are treated outside the shores of this land is not encouraging, we must have to do empirical evaluation of ourselves, we get devalued a lot in other nations.
“I got calls from people in Ghana, saying that a lot of them are about to be sentenced, some people have been imprisoned for 1000 years and some 500 years imprison.
“And so, it is important that as Nigerians, we should reevaluate our statues and our values because the way we are treated even as a governor, you don’t wear governor at the airport.
“When I was in America, they singled some of us out and conducted a thorough search, it is an intimidation. We will not continue to live in such manner that bring humiliation to our nation, it is very important,” he noted