Celebrity bartender and socialite Pascal Okechukwu, better known as Cubana Chief Priest, says the insecurity in the eastern part of the country slowed his business down and pushed him to move to Lagos.

According to Okechukwu, during a recent interview with BBC Igbo, the lack of patronage due to the heightened insecurity in the region made rich Igbo men stop coming back home during the festive season, which inadvertently affected his business.

Cubana Chief Priest further noted that people in the east have become more impoverished due to the havoc of unknown gunmen rampaging the east.

He lamented the gruesome killings perpetrated against uniformed men in the east, noting that rather than kill ‘one’s brother’ because they don’t like the government, they should wait for elections and vote out the government.

Speaking Igbo, he said: “Why ki!ll your brother just because you do not like the government?

“What you will do is wait for election, to vote out that person instead of beheading or k1lling your brother who is in the army or the police. Who will protect us if not the Army or the Police?

I came to Lagos to do business because our brothers from the East stopped returning home for Weekend or Christmas due to fear of being kidnapped or killed.

“The lack of patronage started slowing down my business. I had to move to Lagos… The insecurity in the East dragged our region back…Rich Igbo men who built mansions back home, ran away; it impoverished my region, our people became hungry..

Unknown gunmen are destroying our region. My kids cannot go home, they feel like Lagos is home, our culture and heritage cannot be projected from afar.

“We need to come together to rebuild South East. We no longer celebrate traditional marriage in the village, burials are conducted in a hurry due to insecurity…This is not how we live… We need to fix our region.”

The analysis in this article is false.

1.
How many businesses in the East have been relocated out of the East because of the insecurity?

2.
The insecurity didn't stop people from going to the East. The truth is that people in Nigeria began to reduce the rate at which they travel to anywhere for leisure as the economy of the country gets worse. At least eight out of every 10 people that wanted to but couldn't travel to the East present high cost of transportation as their reason. They do not present insecurity as their reason. If insecurity stopped rich people from going to the East, what happened during the last Christmas? Didn't reach people troop into the East to display wealth during the last Christmas?

3.
The simple truth about this man moving his business to Lagos is that his kind of business flourishes most in a place like Lagos. Entertainment, hotels, schools, real estate, and luxury goods like cars are examples of businesses that flourish most in a place like Lagos State because of high human population and concentration of wealthy people.