From Police Station in Uromi to Global Podcast: Obehi Ewanfoh’s Journey of Defiant Curiosity and Storytelling

Every great project is born from a moment of defiant curiosity, a refusal to accept a void where knowledge should be. For Obehi Ewanfoh, the founder of the globally recognized Obehi Podcast, that moment didn’t happen in a slick studio or a university lecture hall. It happened in the humble, slightly intimidating environment of a police station in his Nigerian hometown of Uromi. 

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This is the journey of a young man driven by a profound need to know, who transformed two acts of courageous inquiry, one local, one diasporic, into a thousand-episode platform that has become the vital archival voice of the global African experience. 

Finding the Voice – His Courage in Uromi 

Obehi Ewanfoh’s first step into the world of storytelling and analysis was not an ambition; it was an act of civic responsibility rooted in a desire for clarity. It reveals an early commitment to accountability, a principle deeply valued in many indigenous African governance systems, where community oversight of power is paramount. 

Law and Order in the Local Context 

“Reflecting on my journey, I realized my first interview was actually at a police station,” Ewanfoh recently shared during his “African Diasporan Storytelling Series” event. This seemingly simple statement reveals the audacious nature of the podcast’s origin. 

As a student, Obehi had learned a critical tenet of justice: the 24-hour rule. It’s the foundational idea that a person should not be held in police detention for more than 24 hours without being formally charged.  

This was a piece of formal, codified law; a promise of protection. Yet, witnessing local arrests and procedures in his community, Obehi sensed a gap between the law as written, and the law as practiced. 

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Most young people might have complained to friends or simply internalized the confusion. Obehi did something radically different. He sought out the authority for clarification. 

The Confrontation: Paper and Pen vs. Power 

Picture the scene: a young man, driven purely by the hunger for truth, walking into the Divisional Police Office in Uromi. 

“I walked into the police station, requesting to speak with the DPO (Divisional Police Officer). He agreed to an interview, and I took notes on my paper without any other means to document the interview.” 

This was journalism in its purest, most essential form. There were no microphones, no cameras, no technology to buffer the interaction, just Obehi, his paper, his pen, and his relentless questions about procedure, about law, and about the humanity of those detained. 

The DPO’s willingness to engage was a powerful validation. It wasn’t just a successful interview; it was a life-altering affirmation. “That experience, being heard by someone of that caliber, was incredibly encouraging and fueled my passion for asking questions and interviewing people,” Obehi explained.  

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This moment forged his Analytical Protocol: go to the source, ask the difficult questions, document the answers, and seek the truth that lies between theory and practice.  

The police station interview wasn’t just a footnote in his career; it was the entire foundation of his methodology. It taught him the power of a direct question and the utility of simple, clear documentation. 

Building the Bridge Upon his Arrival in Verona 

The second foundational chapter of the Obehi Podcast story begins with a journey, the profound shift from Uromi to Verona, Italy. This transition introduced Obehi to a different, perhaps more insidious, kind of scarcity: the scarcity of shared Legacy and Heritage in the diaspora. 

The Diaspora Disorientation 

Migration is often a process of intellectual and cultural dislocation. Arriving in Verona, Obehi sought the natural anchor points for a newcomer: the stories of those who had paved the way.  

He was looking for community continuity, for the documented experiences of Africans who had navigated the local Italian landscape before him. He was looking for his new lineage. 

This drive is a reflection of African Principles that emphasize community memory and the wisdom of elders. But what he found was a vacuum. 

“I arrived in Verona from Nigeria asking for information about those that had been there before me and I was not satisfied by what I got.” 

The information was fragmented, buried, or simply non-existent in any coherent, accessible format. There was no collective archive of professional triumphs, cultural adaptations, or social navigation for the African community in Verona. The stories were dispersed, undocumented, and therefore, functionally, invisible. 

The Genesis of the Mission: Creating the Missing Information 

For Obehi, the lack of this information was more than a personal inconvenience; it was a systemic failure. The absence of a shared narrative hinders Economic Realities and successful integration, making every African immigrant start their journey from scratch. 

This is where the investigative courage learned in Uromi met the communal need of the diaspora. He looked at the informational void and made a promise that became the Obehi Podcast’s core mandate, built upon his more than 10 years of research into the presence of Africans in Verona and northern Italy.  

He said to himself that he was going to create the missing information. This was the true birth of the podcast. The research, apart from the podcast, directly led to two books: “The Journey – Africans in Verona”, “The Color Of Our Children” and, indirectly, his five-part book series “The Storytelling Mastery” based on his experience of the research. 

It wasn’t just about recording conversations; it was about building a historical archive, a library of lived experience, and an intellectual bridge between the continent and the diaspora.  

It was an act of Cultural Expression through the medium of oral history, ensuring that future generations would not suffer the same informational disorientation. 

Ubuntu in Action: The Thousand-Episode Legacy 

The Obehi Podcast evolved rapidly from a localized Verona research project into a global phenomenon because its mission transcends borders. It is a commitment to Ubuntu, the philosophy of “I am because we are”, translated into a digital, accessible medium. 

Amplifying the Multidimensional African Lens 

Today, the Obehi Podcast is proof of the power of that early curiosity. With over 1000 episodes published, it is no longer just a podcast; it is a repository of contemporary African and diasporic life.  

Our Analysis finds that the platform is a living document, applying a multidimensional framework to every story: 

• Political Structures: Stories of advocacy, navigating immigration policy, and engaging with geopolitical dynamics. 

• Economic Realities: Interviews with entrepreneurs, professionals, and innovators who are shaping global and local market structures, offering blueprints for economic empowerment. 

• Cultural Expressions: Deep dives into language preservation, artistic innovation, and the syncretism of traditions in new environments, safeguarding heritage. 

The podcast’s focus is clear: to capture the vast diversity within the global African community, ensuring that the narratives acknowledge both the enduring Legacy of historical challenges (like colonialism and enslavement) and the contemporary reality of innovation, strength, and intellectual leadership.  

The sheer volume of episodes provides the quantitative evidence needed to counter generalizations and harmful stereotypes. 

The Founder’s Enduring Trait: Relentless Utility 

Obehi Ewanfoh’s journey is the perfect founder story because it follows the arc of necessity. He didn’t start with a business plan; he started with a need for justice in Uromi and a need for information in Verona. 

He took the courage of that first unrecorded interview with the DPO and applied it on a global scale, asking thousands of follow-up questions to thousands of different people. He built a professional platform out of a personal quest, demonstrating that the most profound insights often come from the simplest, most human act: asking questions and listening with intention. 

By publishing several books and completing over a thousand episodes, Obehi has not just documented the African diaspora; he has actively woven the scattered threads of its experience into a strong, visible, and enduring tapestry—a gift of information to the entire community. 

This is the legacy of the Obehi Podcast: the ultimate proof that filling an informational void with truth, context, and commitment to community is the most powerful kind of creation. 

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