And the Ekweramadu saga continues: The latest development on the matter is a report that four of the assailants have been identified and arrested by the Bavarian police.

The identities of the suspects have not been made public probably because the news is false.

It appears someone at the Nigerian Embassy in Germany is acting like a dog with a bone and will not allow the matter to rest.
To start with, under German Law, an assault case has to be reported to the police by the victim before the police can do anything about it and if the victim is a foreigner, it should be reported at the victim’s embassy or consulate, whichever is applicable, as well.

It is obvious that the deputy senate president, Ike Ekweramadu, neither reported the matter to the police nor officially reported to the Nigerian embassy in Germany as he specifically told reporters on his arrival less than 48-hours after the incident that he had forgiven his attackers as he put the whole incident down to drunken behaviour.

In a civilised society, Ekweremadu’s rather magnanimous decision not to press charges would have been the end of the matter but not in Nigeria.

The Nigerian embassy’s decision to cite S.102 of the German Criminal Code also goes to show Sen. Ekweremadu’s unwillingness to pursue the matter any further so the embassy decided to take matters into their hands.

The embassy’s dilemma, however, lies in the wordings of the provision of the German law they are relying on.
According to S. 102 of the German Criminal Code:

(1) Whosoever commits an attack against the life or limb of a foreign head of state, a member of a foreign government or the head of a foreign diplomatic mission who is accredited in the Federal territory while the victim is in Germany in his official capacity, shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding five years or a fine, in especially serious cases to imprisonment of not less than one year.

The questions that stem from that provision are as follows:

As a senator, let us assume that he will be considered as a member of a foreign government but

Was he in Germany in his official capacity? And

Was he accredited in the German territory as a foreign government official?

There’s a strong likelihood that the answer to those two questions is “No”.

If that is the case, the Foreign ministry through the Nigerian embassy in German should use this incident as another excuse for government officials to waste money on sponsored trips to German to go and press German officials to prosecute the case.