That attack on Mexican ambassador

Posted on | mei 30, 2011 | 1 Comment

The foul-tasting aspects of the Nigerian society affect foreigners living within and even diplomats who should be enjoying immunity are not exempted. On Friday night, the ambassador of Mexico to Nigeria was said to have been attacked by some mobs near his house because of some traffic issues and his car was damaged in the process.

His excellency Alberto Barreo Stahl was coming from a function in Abuja and on getting to the entrance of his residence in Usuma Street, Maitama, right in front of Summerset Hotel, where a ceremony was taking place, the whole area was blocked with vehicles.

When it was getting difficult for the ambassador to pass through to his residence he just parked and decided to sit back in the car, the story goes.

But this diplomat is a perfect gentleman who, when he was still charge d’affaire of his country elsewhere was included as a member of the Biopolitics International Organisation (B.I.O.) that awards Bios Prizes to visionary leaders whose contributions make this world a better place for the future.

This group gave awards to Jacques Cousteau in Paris in 1996, and to Mstislav Rostropovich at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg in 1999, B.I.O. honoured UN High Commissioner for Refugees and former Premier of The Netherlands, Ruud Lubbers, with the Bios Prize during a special ceremony in Athens, Greece, on Tuesday, March 11, 2003.

With this, I am just trying to illustrate that Barrero Stahl is a reputable gentleman besides being an ambassador. He also has sundry excellent CV to his credit.

The annoying part of this tale was when the narration mentioned that the top diplomat was dragged down from his car by the assailants and his diplomatic car plate torn.

This is the reality of the Nigerian society that is gradually turning to barbarism which no sensible entity living within whether a diplomat, ordinary foreigner, government official or private citizen cannot stomach.
Mob action a la the type carried out by commercial motorcycle riders whenever any of their members is confronted by some road users seems to have its emanation from the larger chunk of the Nigerian society.
If not how could it be that citizens, holding a party or whatever who felt that their rights are being trampled upon not call the police which duty it is to handle such situation?

I do not want to go into the action of the police when they were called in by the ambassador or their part of the story in order not to elicit police readymade reaction for this column but must point out that it appalled me that the ambassador was the person said to have evacuated his wife in another vehicle rather than the police.

Yes, the ambassador did the right thing by calling the police to come to his rescue but the police said they’re yet to get a report at their office meaning that they are just expecting a report that would lead to investigation and arrests. But the envoy seems not to be in this mood.

What the diplomat lamented about when he said he was in a state of shock is that he expected the police to rescue him from the mob instantly and they could not do so. Were they overwhelmed by the mob when they were called?

All told, diplomats living within the country ought to feel secured as they go about their duties and if the crowd that besieged him were to have known what diplomatic immunity was all about, they wouldn’t have dragged him down from his car.

Good enough, the foreign minister, Mr. Odein Ajumogobia was not happy when he was informed of this.
Nonetheless, the purpose of writing to condemn this act is just to caution those revellers who turned to mob, the motorists who were driving against traffic and others who failed to do what they’re supposed to do against future occurrences.

The top diplomat himself has decided to let the sleeping dog lie and from his disposition is not going to order for the arrest of anybody but let this barbarism and ineptitude within the Nigerian society be cubed.
Mexico is a good friend of Nigeria and it is with such emerging democracies that we should be sharing experience. It is equally an oil rich nation, making progress and battling with the types of snags we have in our system; therefore let’s threat our friends just as we would like our friends to treat us.

AUTHOR: Paul Ohia
URL: www.paulohia.blog.com and www.paulohia.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: paulohia [at] yahoo.co.uk

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Comments

One Response to “That attack on Mexican ambassador”

Ogungbemi adeshola
augustus 1st, 2011 @ 12:35

Dats d height of lawlessness in Nigeria.i wonder what the diplomat thinks of relations with nigeria now