Europe's shadow war had failed. The tariffs hadn't broken him. The gangs had been dismantled. Their political whispers in Abuja hadn't slowed the tide. Imperial Holdings only grew stronger.
So they changed tactics. They abandoned subtlety.
It happened late at night. Chinedu's convoy was moving along a newly finished expressway in Enugu—a road built by Imperial Construction, gleaming under the streetlights. Suddenly, gunfire tore through the silence.
Two SUVs in the rear exploded, engulfed in flames.
Imperial Security responded instantly, forming a human shield around Chinedu's armored car.
The attack lasted less than four minutes, but it left the road littered with twisted metal and shattered glass.
The would-be assassins vanished into the night. None survived to tell who sent them.
Barely a month later, another attempt came—this time disguised as an accident. On his way to Lagos, the brakes of his armored car failed on a steep descent. Only the reflexes of his driver and the strength of the reinforced vehicle saved them from plunging into a ravine. The investigation revealed tampering—sophisticated, deliberate.
For a brief moment, the empire held its breath. The boardrooms of Imperial Holdings whispered, the press speculated, and ordinary Nigerians flooded the streets and social media with one voice:
"Protect Obasi."
He became more than a businessman—he was now a symbol
Imperial Security tripled its size, recruiting veterans, training with Israeli and South African experts, deploying drones and armored patrols.
Chinedu ordered a "shadow sweep"—identifying and dismantling networks of influence that had made the attempts possible. No one would ever get close again.
And most importantly, he went public.
Standing before cameras, visibly shaken but unbroken, he declared:
"I will not be intimidated. This project is bigger than me—it is Africa's rebirth. If I must risk my life for it, then so be it. But know this: every bullet fired at me is a bullet fired at Africa's future. And Africa will not bow."
The roar that followed was not just Nigerian—it was continental. From Accra to Nairobi, from Johannesburg to Dakar, ordinary people claimed him as their own.
The assassination attempts backfired spectacularly. Instead of isolating him, they turned him into a martyr-in-waiting, an untouchable figure whose survival only strengthened his myth.
Leaders in the AU, once cautious, now began whispering of giving him even greater influence.
The youth rallied harder.
Investors who had been hesitant poured in, calculating that someone this resilient would inevitably reshape Africa.
And in his Lagos office, looking out over the skyline, Chinedu thought quietly to himself:
"If they wanted me afraid, they should have killed me. Now, I cannot stop—not even if I wanted to."
The war had left scars. But it also gave him fire.