By Martin Cole-
A racism row has accompanied the story of a Nigerian man on crotches killed by a white male with known issues of mental health.
The broad day light killing of Alika Ogorchukwu, 39, and the case of Beauty Davis, who was allegedly slapped by her restaurant owner boss after she asked for wages owed to her, have sparked a racism row in Italy amid an election campaign in which immigration is a central theme for a coalition containing two far-right parties that is tipped to win.
Ogorchukwu was beaten to death in Civitanova Marche, on the Adriatic coast, allegedly by an Italian man who reacted violently after Ogorchukwu tried to sell him a packet of tissues. The suspect, said to suffer from psychiatric issues, has been arrested.
Deputy police commissioner , Matteo Luconi, has ruled out “racial hatred”, adding that the killer’s response was provoked by Ogorchukwu’s “insistent request for a handout”, but not everybody is convinced with his analysis.
Mental health analyst Deon Vernhoven told The Eye Of Media.Com: ”why would anybody take the word of a police commissioner in matters concerning racism in a country like Italy, where allegations of racism is rife? Luconi has out the killing down to the victim’s insistence on a hand out, but what is to say the fact the man insisting on a handout was black did not spur the killer to attack? In a case like this, you can’t rule anything out, but you also cannot definitively say it was a racist attack, because we do not have enough facts at the moment.
‘If we have evidence of the attacker exhibiting such violence against white males that could help rule out racism, but at the moment, one has to keep an open mind as to the motive of this killing”.
According to police, Ferlazzo first struck Ogorchukwu with a crutch the vendor used after pursuing the Nigerian 200 meters (yards) down a shopping street lined with high-end boutiques. Some accounts said Ogorchukwu had complimented Ferlazzo’s companion while trying to make a sale or ask for spare change. Others said he had touched the companion’s arm.
Researcher and analyst , Joshua Greenwood waded in on the debate: ”it is to quick to conclude this to be a racial attack, especially if according to some accounts he had passed an unwelcome compliment to the killer’s partner, or touched her arm. Some people would go crazy over that, no matter the race of the person, least so a man with complicated mental health issues. Ofcourse, racism could br an aggravating factor in the man’s mind as if he has a very low opinion of black people, he could react a lot more violently towards a black male insisting on selling him goods, and complimenting his partner.
Two marches have taken place this weekend through one of Italy’s Adriatic beach towns, both seeking justice over the daylight killing of a Nigerian man at the hands of an Italian stranger.
One of the groups insist that the killing bares the hallmarks of racism, depicted in two other killings in the country. The other group say they don’t want a racism row to interfere with their cry for justice.
“The word racism cannot be minimized because it exists,’’ according to Daniel Amanze, who arrived in Italy from Nigeria as a student 40 years ago. He said he saw racism becoming more “obvious” in recent years as some politicians scapegoat immigrants to cover “for their poor administration.”
Amanze said Ogorchukwu’s killing renewed a sense of fear among Africans living in the Marche region that had started to dissipate following two other racially motivated attacks. One was a 2018 shooting spree by a far-right political activist targeting Africans in Macerata that wounded six.
The other killing was the 2016 death of a Nigerian man, Emmanuel Chidi Nnamdi, who was attacked after defending his wife from racial abuse in the town of Fermo.
One march by Nigerians living in Italy’s Macerata province was led by victim Alika Ogorchukwu’s tearful widow and joined by two of his brothers. Organizers of that march said they did not want the search for justice to be clouded by accusations of racism which they feel cannot be proven.
The second march, along the same route an hour later was led by Black Italians from all over Italy who demanded that Italian authorities reverse themselves and recognize the role that race played in the July 29 killing.
“Not naming racism won’t help us understand how to defeat it. Because racism exists in Italy,” Selam Tesfaye, a Milan-based immigrant activist, told the second crowd of about 100 people. “If someone in Civitanova wants to explain why this is not racism, we are here.”
A widely circulated video shows the Italian man wrestling Ogorchukwu to the ground and strangling him. One man’s voice can be heard shouting for the attacker to stop, but no onlookers intervened physically, adding a layer of public outrage over their apparent indifference.
Police arrested an Italian suspect, Filippo Ferlazzo, 32, but quickly ruled out a racial motivation for the attack. The finding was confirmed by prosecutors who did not include racial motivation in the charge sheet, according to Ferlazzo’s lawyer, Roberta Bizzarri.
Townspeople have accepted the official version of events, attributing the Nigerian man’s death to an insistent street-seller unfortunately clashing with a man who has a court-documented history of mental illness.
“This is not a racist city,’’ newsstand owner Domenico Giordano said. “This is an open city. If you behave well, you are welcomed and even helped.”
Being welcomed and helped does not automatically eliminate the potential of racism in a city or town, according to
Former social manager and expert on race relations, Anji Ossai, told The Eye Of Media.Com that both the deputy police commissioner and the newstand owner have a skewed view of what racism is. ”Welcoming people and being nice does not naturally preclude the existence of racism among a people. Racism has many manifestations including condescending attitudes towards people of other races. Unequal treatment including a feeling of superiority towards others based on race, is itself essentially racist.
It is also ignorant to suggest that a man with mental health issues cannot be racist. Ofcourse they can, and racism could easily be a hidden underlying factor in the attacker’s motive for attacking the man to death.
The fact onlookers watched this man’s killing without intervention could easily be a sign of intrinsic racism in the town. It will depend whether any of the onlookers were capable of intervening, and whether on the balance of probability, they would have intervened if the victim had been white or if the attacker was black.
That’s the test. Saying a city is not racist is just words, what matters is how those words measure up to the facts and experiences of minorities in that town”.
Flowers
People left flowers and condolences on the sidewalk where Ogorchukwu was killed, in front of a beachwear boutique that was closed for lunch at the time. Store owner Laura Latino said she has received negative comments from as far away as Houston, accusing her of standing by and doing nothing when she wasn’t even there.
‘’Be careful about judging a city of 45,000 people,’’ Latino said, adding that false rumours were “ruining the reputation of the city.”
City officials have expressed concerns that the killing was being politicized ahead of Italy’s early parliamentary election on Sept. 25.
Samuel Kunoun, a Nigerian union activist who organized the march with the victim’s family, said he does not believe the attack was racially motivated. Still, the role of race in the case is so charged that he kept the word “racism” off banners in the march that attracted 200 people, mostly Nigerians.
“We don’t have to mix it with racism. What happened is that someone who is not normal killed our fellow Nigerian,″ Kunoun said. “We want this boy to pay for what he has done, to be in prison for life. That is our justice.”
But a manifesto for the second march, billed as Italy’s first-ever organized by Black Italians, lists the recognition of the role of race in Ogorchukwu’s killing as chief among 11 demands. Some 30 organizations said they would seek to join the prosecution as civil complainants.
Ogorchukwu’s widow, Charity Oriakhi, is reluctant to say the killing was racially motivated.
“It is just someone who is wicked,” Oriakhi told The Associated Press.
She said both she and her husband had always felt welcome in Italy and that he never recounted negative interactions when he was out selling. In fact, she said, he often came home with gifts from Italians for the couple’s 8-year-old son.
The pair met in the Tuscan town of Prato about a decade ago, shortly after Ogorchukwu’s arrival in Italy, and later resettled in the Marche region in an apartment above a marble workshop in the small hillside town of San Severino.
The Nigerian government has condemned Ogorchukwu’s death and its foreign ministry has urged Italian authorities to “bring the perpetrator of the heinous act to book without delay.”