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The Labour Mayor of Galway, Helen Ogbu, has apologised after inaccuracies about when she arrived in Ireland appeared on her personal website and in other party communications. The controversy deepened when it emerged she had shared a foreign news clip on her personal YouTube channel that repeated the incorrect timeline.
Party attributes mistakes to volunteers
Labour has said the errors were the result of volunteer activity rather than deliberate misinformation. A party spokesman told Extra.ie that the video on Ms Ogbu’s YouTube channel “arose the same way as with the typo on the website, through volunteer work,” and added the party regretted the mistake and had accepted responsibility.
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The party now says activists and volunteers were responsible both for the incorrect biography on Ms Ogbu’s website and for posting the news clip. Labour only moved to correct the website after Extra.ie contacted the councillor and the party, the spokeswoman said.
What was wrong with the timeline
Reporting by Extra.ie showed a widely repeated claim — that Ms Ogbu came to Ireland after her husband’s death in 2006 — was incorrect. Public records and Ms Ogbu’s own accounts indicate she arrived in Ireland in 2005, while her husband, Sunny Ogbu, was killed in Nigeria in 2010.
The false timeline was echoed in several places, including by Labour leader Ivana Bacik, by TD Ciarán Ahern and in a party newsletter.
An apology to councillors
Ms Ogbu emailed fellow councillors late on Sunday — at 11.46pm — saying she regretted the error and understood it had caused confusion. In the message she described the mistake as “a human mistake” and said she took “full responsibility for ensuring that information published about me is accurate.”
She reiterated that her late husband was assassinated in Nigeria in 2010 and said the correct date had been the one she had given consistently in media interviews and public engagements. According to her letter, the website was taken offline because those responsible lacked direct access to make the amendment.
Video raised fresh questions
Extra.ie also reported that Ms Ogbu had shared footage from a Nigerian news outlet on her personal YouTube channel more than a month before the personal website went live. That clip repeated the inaccurate suggestion that she came to Ireland after her husband’s death. Ms Ogbu did not mention the YouTube post in her letter to colleagues.
Only last night did the party single out an activist for sharing the clip, saying this had occurred before the website was published. In her email, Ms Ogbu and Labour said they accepted full responsibility and asked that the clarification help set the record straight.
Local reaction and next steps
Ms Ogbu said she had been “deeply touched” by the support she received from people in Galway and from community groups. She added that the messages of encouragement had reinforced her pride in serving the city.
Labour has said it responded to media queries over the past two weeks and corrected the publicly visible information once the error was identified. The episode raises questions about how party volunteers handle personal biographies and the controls in place for official and personal online accounts.
Additional reporting by Craig Hughes
