Gardaí are monitoring online death threats against the Mayor of Galway while a number of city institutions have disabled social media comments on posts referencing Helen Ogbu.
Separately, the Labour Party has complained to a national newspaper for assigning two men to call unannounced to the home of Councillor Ogbu last week, where she lives with her adult daughter – both victims of the murder of their respective husband and father.
The party issued a statement describing the incident as “intimidatory and unacceptable” while the Daily Mail said it rejected this characterisation in a follow-up article in its sister paper, the Mail on Sunday. Its journalists also doorstepped Labour leader Ivana Bacik at her home on Saturday morning.
Every mayor of Galway has close relations with local emergency services for civic reasons, but it is understood gardaí have called to Councillor Ogbu’s home twice on foot of reports from neighbours about suspicious persons or vehicles in the area. Local gardaí are also aware of concerning calls to the community worker and foster mother’s private mobile phone.
“The Labour Party have been in contact with An Garda Síochána, who are taking these matters seriously,” said a party spokesperson.
Since her unanimous election to the city’s mayoralty last month, the first-term Labour Party councillor has faced an avalanche of largely racist commentary from social media accounts based in the US, Britain, Ireland and from named individuals recognisable as Galway residents.
The Mayor’s office and the Labour Party are understood to be liaising closely with Galway gardaí about a number of issues in relation to the wellbeing and safety of the city’s first citizen, although no formal complaints have been filed at time of going to press.
The Galway Advertiser has seen CCTV footage of individuals who attracted the attention of Councillor Ogbu’s neighbours, and it is understood this has been shared with relevant authorities.
A spokesman for An Garda Síochána confirmed members were aware of the situation. “An Garda Síochána does not comment on security matters in relation to any individual,” he said.
Since a spate of attacks and incidents of harassment at the homes of local authority members across the country since 2019, councillors are entitled to special grants of €2,500 for home security systems and GPS trackers. At Councillor Ogbu’s inauguration as mayor, Councillor Frank Fahy (FG ) called on national politicians to force social media companies to take responsibility for instances of hate speech published on their platforms.
The Labour Party said a digital media professional it hired to coordinate Ogbu’s Galway West by-election attempt last May spent 40 per cent of her time screening racist abuse, and used AI tools in a partially successful attempt to block it automatically.
Galway Bay FM, the Galway Advertiser, and other local media organisations have effectively cancelled online comment facilities on articles referencing Helen Ogbu, while the Galway City Council has suspended commentary on its online postings.
At least two local charities and one sporting organisation have also suspended social media commentary on posts including photos of Mayor Ogbu.
Officials in City Hall said they were initially loathe to interfere with citizens’ rights to post criticism of elected councillors, but have now decided to report extreme incidents to the Guards. A spokeswoman declined to confirm if City Hall has deployed extra community warden patrols in Rahoon where the Ogbu family lives.
“Any form of intimidating behaviour, including harassment, hate speech, racism, and bullying, is not accepted by Galway City Council and will not be tolerated,” said Leonard Cleary, the council’s chief executive. “There has been a marked increase in racist commentary on social media over recent weeks on our channels – this is unacceptable, and does not reflect the mandate given by the people of Galway city in the [2024] local elections.
“Galway City Council will not tolerate racism or hate speech in any form. We are proactively engaging with An Garda Síochána in this regard, and I would encourage the public to report such instances to the relevant social media platforms, Coimisiún na Meán, hotline.ie or An Garda Síochána.”
Somewhat surprisingly, a small number of individuals well-known in Galway’s business and civic society circles have liked or shared social media posts under their own names, containing derogatory and dehumanising descriptions of Councillor Ogbu and her daughter. Some posts have called for these two Irish citizens to face execution or deportation.
Almost immediately after city councillors elected Galway’s first non-white mayor in 540 years on June 19, right-wing agitators on Instagram and TikTok posted videos questioning why some accounts of Ogbu’s “backstory” describe her arrival as an asylum seeker in Ireland in 2005 as after her husband, Sonny Ogbu, was murdered. Nze Sunny Ogbu was killed in a suspected political assassination in Nigeria in 2010 – five years after Helen requested international protection from political persecution for herself and her daughter. Some online commentators have posted maliciously edited evidence inferring Ogbu has been inaccurate in relaying her family’s own history.
Sunny Ogbu was a member of a wealthy business dynasty in Nigeria who had declared his intention to seek election under the banner of a political organisation opposed to Nigeria’s then ruling party. His daughter was born in Dublin in 2001, and his wife had been living in Galway since 2005 after applying for political asylum because Sunny had received threats.
On Helen Ogbu’s website, it erroneously stated that she had arrived in Ireland in 2006 after the assassination of her husband. The webpage was taken down following a query by the Daily Mail. Mayor Ogbu told local journalists she was aware of the mistake for some time, but had been unable to have the page updated.
