By
UGO ONUOHA
“So by Kanu or through Kanu the Igbo nation over time has become a wasteland of sorts. The violent enforcement of sit-at-home orders by the IPOB since 2017 has devastated every sector of the south east – businesses, investments, education, governance, among others. Bloodletting which used to be an abomination among Ndigbo has become commonplace. There had even been stories of cannibalism among the Igbo “efulefu” or renegades.”
To many Nigerians including some Igbo, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is the devil’s incarnate. He probably is. But not so fast. To some other Nigerians, he is the major problem of this country. Currently. To the Igbo who are outside the cult of Kanu, the putative leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra [IPOB], he is the sole reason for the loss of their loved ones, the ruination of their businesses in the south east, the pervasive insecurity in the Igbo nation, and the despoliation of a once peaceful and thriving region. Kanu, and Kanu alone is the reason why the Igbo, arguably the most populous indigenous nation in Nigeria, have been cut adrift from the mainstream of Nigeria’s national politics since after the cameo appearance of the former Nigerian vice president [1979-1983], the late Dr. Alex Ifeanyichukwu Ekwueme, an architect and a lawyer.
Everything evil afflicting Ala Igbo, and to some extent Nigeria, since the emergence of Kanu on the scene as an agitator and the inspiration of a separatist or self determination movement for the Igbo under the umbrella of Biafra have been laid at his feet. And this is perhaps rightly so. However, not many of us will readily admit that before the advent of the menace of Kanu, there was a disconnect in Igbo land between leaders and followers. There was a palpable leadership vacuum. And as they say, nature abhors vacuum. There was a misalignment between the interests of the Igbo leadership and the aspirations of the younger generation. Nnamdi Kanu who in reality was not the founder of IPOB moved in to fill the vacuum. He seized the organisation and then deployed Radio Biafra to push his megalomaniac agenda of attempting to become the Supreme Leader of the Igbo, a people who are otherwise urbane, sophisticated, discerning and republican. He deployed his oratorical prowess and prescience of mind to sway the gullible and the simple-minded. Some uninformed people believed that his worshippers were only young people. No. They cut across a wide spectrum of the Igbo – young, old, literate, semi-literate, university teachers, students, artisans, and diasporans. Just name it.
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The majority of Kanu’s apostles verily believed that the declaration of the new republic of Biafra was imminent. Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu had declared a Republic of Biafra in 1967 which became defunct in 1970. Kanu’s grossly uninformed followers kept boasting about the countries and world powers that had already recognised the emergent phantom nation, including the prospective issuance of a proclamation by the United Nations [UN] birthing Biafra sooner than the skeptics could imagine. In a real, though misguided sense, there was a revolution of rising expectations amongst his supporters, and freedom for Biafrans from the suffocating Nigeria which was derogatively referred to as a zoo. So whatever Kanu said to the maddening crowd was the gospel truth. It was not unusual then to see charlatans and some otherwise respectable and knowledgeable persons fawning and prostrating flat on the ground to greet Kanu in public places. And he reveled in the obsequious idiocy. A full blown cult was formed. Many Igbo dared not criticise or even advise the Supreme Leader. He had a short fuse for those who held contrary views about the charade called a liberation struggle. Even speaking in whispers against the Leader was a dangerous pastime and venture because Kanu had eyes and ears in many communities in the south east. Every dissenter became circumspect while speaking even in small gatherings in Igbo land. The reach of Kanu and his henchmen was frighteningly pervasive. And the fear of speaking against the man was the beginning of wisdom. You could be killed or maimed at the minimum. You could lose family members and livelihoods. In short, there was no safe place.
From that point the so-called agitation to found the new Biafra could only go one way- down the hill and down a slippery slope. Kanu created or better still promoted an inchoate organisation he was incapable of managing because, ab initio, he was incapable of managing himself. He mistook delusion for success. He strutted around with swagger and an unrivalled air of self-importance. He became disdainful of everybody. He thought himself above reproach. He became the legendary or the proverbial “eze onye agwalam” of Ala Igbo. He was abusive to everybody, with justification in some cases. He travelled in and out of Nigeria believing that his dual nationality [he was also British] will provide a sufficient cover or immunity for him. Apparently, Kanu was convinced that Britain, the West and the world would be in his corner and on the side of Biafra if anything untoward happened to him or his struggle. He may be a smart youngster but he was a novice on realpolitik. Every country’s involvement or intervention in external situations are primarily driven by national interests not emotions. For many countries, a bird in hand [Nigeria] is worth more than a thousand birds [Biafra] in the sky.
So by Kanu or through Kanu the Igbo nation over time has become a wasteland of sorts. The violent enforcement of sit-at-home orders by the IPOB since 2017 has devastated every sector of the south east – businesses, investments, education, governance, among others. Bloodletting which used to be an abomination among Ndigbo has become commonplace. There had even been stories of cannibalism among the Igbo “efulefu” or renegades. “Aru mere”. At the peak of the insecurity and up till now, some Igbo rituals including traditional marriages were consummated in strange lands. That was the extent of the damage to the psyche of a proud people. If the truth must be told many of the Igbo people residing outside the homeland have been IDPs [internally displaced persons], though they are not captured in the official government statistics. Some have not visited home in the past five years or more. Others from the diaspora make Lagos, Port Harcourt, Asaba or some other places their bases. And from those places they make sorties to their villages. They dash in and dash out before news would filter out that they were around. That had been part of the tragedy of the Igbo for almost one decade.
However, it is convenient though dubious to make Kanu the scape goat. But if the truth must be told it will be wrong to heap all the blame or the woes of the south east on Kanu. In the beginning IPOB was not a violent self determination movement. Apart from the leadership cadre IPOB was composed of youngsters in the south east who organised rallies and peaceful protests in that region armed with the flag and insignias of the defunct Republic of Biafra. They operated for many years that way until the advent of Nigeria’s affliction, the late Muhammadu Buhari, to the presidency in 2015. He had an abiding disdain which bordered on hatred for the Igbo. He spoke derogatively of the Igbo nation throughout his eight wasted years of ‘non-governance’. Indeed, he set Nigeria back by 30 years at the minimum. And it was he, Buhari, who incited and stoked violence in the south east. His unleashing of the military on unarmed protesting youths in Igbo land, and the atrocities they committed through their so-called Operations Python Dance and Crocodile Smile were well documented by local and global human rights organisations, including Amnesty International. There were videos of soldiers shooting fleeing pro-Biafra youths in the back and killing them all over the east. There were footages of security agents indiscriminately arresting Igbo youths and subjecting them to humiliation and unimaginable torture, often resulting in gruesome deaths.
Sadly, Kanu and his ragtag and brainless group allowed themselves to be goaded into the cycle of violence and bloodletting. He established the Eastern Security Network [ESN] to, according to their idiotic tale, ward off the invasion of Igbo land by the marauding and gun totting Fulani herdsmen. Videos of their armed but rag-tag ‘soldiers’ were caused to go viral on social media. Ideally, no sovereign tolerates a challenge to its jurisdiction. So the full weight of the armed forces and mercenaries from a private military company owned by Dokubo Asari was visited on the east. The mercenaries infiltrated remote communities in the Igbo heartland, recruited and armed locals who left sorrow and blood in their trail. Dokubo confirmed this much in one of his recent media interviews. It has to be stated for clarity that the impression given about the Nigerian sovereign not tolerating any challenge to its powers only obtains in the south, and particularly in the south east. The sovereignty of Nigeria has been severally challenged in parts of the north without consequences. Terrorists, bandits and kidnappers are still occupying Nigerian territories in parts of the north, setting up administrative structures, and levying taxes on indigenes and residents. Ironically governments are negotiating with the terrorists under the guise of a non-kinetic approach to fighting insurgency. Terrorists come to these negotiations with governments armed with military grade weapons. And they pose for pictures with the government negotiators who cut the image of zombies. As we write this such a negotiation might be ongoing somewhere in Katsina or Zamfara. What a weird spectacle?
The foregoing notwithstanding, Nnamdi Kanu deserves to be made to pay for the turmoil in Ala Igbo. He is directly or vicariously responsible, no matter how his sympathisers would want to spin it. However, the current court process against him in Abuja is a trial by ordeal. Persecution not prosecution. Kanu’s abduction in a foreign land said to be Kenya, and his extraordinary rendition to Nigeria offended all known municipal laws and international treaties. A fact finding team of rapporteurs of the United Nations has since declared that Kanu’s abduction and trial was illegal. It said that Kanu was a prisoner of conscience, and so should be released. ECOWAS court was reported to have made a similar finding. Even the Abuja division of Nigeria’s Court of Appeal ruled in 2022 that the manner of the abduction and return of Kanu to Nigeria had stripped all the law courts in the land of jurisdiction. But the Supreme Court has a contrary view that appears to be untethered to any laws or precedence. Kanu’s prosecution or persecution was expected to begin to fully unravel by yesterday (Monday, Oct. 27). He has disengaged his attorneys and elected to defend himself. He has listed high profile serving and former government officials, and some foreigners as his witnesses. Some see his move as foolish. A no-brainer. Probably, they are right. But one thing is sure: Kanu will not play on the turf and by the rules of the prosecution and the courts. He won’t allow himself to be drawn into legal niceties or allow himself to be constrained by lawyering. Kanu may have reckoned that the Nigerian state with its compromised judiciary is determined to get him, to break him, and to possibly kill him. So he will fight as dirty as he can muster and use every tool at his disposal to expose the ugly underbelly of the hideous Nigerian state and its rogue judiciary. Nigeria instead of Kanu could be on the dock. This trial promises to be a spectacle. But it could also end in an anti-climax. Nothing is impossible In Nigeria, the self-styled but delusional, giant of Africa.
Ugo Onuoha, Veteran Journalist, was the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief, Champion Newspapers Limited.
