Free Nnamdi Kanu…, by Obi Nwakanma

As at this morning, dear reader of the Orbit, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) remains a political prisoner, and a prisoner of conscience in Nigeria. Kanu continues to be held, against his will, and against the laws of the federation of Nigeria, whose courts have declared that he has broken no laws, and has no case to answer over the matter on which he is being held. 

Kanu’s continued detention is now no longer a personal matter between Nnamdi Kanu and the Federal Government of Nigeria, it is now an insult to the Igbo. I will come to this in a minute. But let me quickly outline the Nnamdi Kanu story, for those who do not know, or who may have forgotten, or who have been absorbed by too much flux of time, and who may now be extremely fatigued by the drag of this case. As at 2015, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was an ordinary Nigerian, and actually, quite unremarkable. Even back at High School, at the Government College, Umuahia, where he was my junior by one year, he was neither remarkable, nor did he show any inclination for politics. Folks who were with him in Cozens House, down the very foot of the valley from the hill where my own House, Simpson, stood on the College drive, remember him as a little headstrong and stubborn. 

But beyond that, Nnamdi Kanu was like us all, aspiring to the careers, and to live his best life in Nigeria, and make his own contributions. He was admitted to the Law School of the University of Nigeria, but left for the United Kingdom to complete his studies, when he allegedly felt that UNEC Law was not offering him the kind of education he desired. But the next time we saw him, he was campaigning for Goodluck Jonathan. There is an extant video of Nnamdi Kanu in London, joining other Nigerians to protest the surge of the Boko Haram, and the insurgency in the North, which had spurted and was clearly orchestrated during Goodluck Jonathan’s tenure. 

Boko Haram was a militant, anti-Nigerian Islamic movement created and funded by key interests from the North of Nigeria, including, some say, the now late, Muhammadu Buhari. Evidence of Buhari’s involvement in the founding and funding of Boko Haram has not been seriously investigated by the Nigerian security services, but a key indicator was that in 2012, Boko Haram appointed him their sole liaison and negotiator with the Jonathan administration. 

Boko Haram was originally intended to create a targeted chaos, make Nigeria ungovernable, and compel some kind of political leverage for these powerful northern interests. Its stated public goal was to dismantle the constitution of the Federation of Nigeria, impose the Sharia, and Islamize Nigeria. Many Nigerians, like Mazi Nnamdi Kanu saw through this anti-Nigerian ploy, and protested loudly, arguing as he did in that video, that the violence orchestrated by Boko Haram and its sponsors would sadly disintegrate Nigeria. He did not want a disintegrated Nigeria, at that point in 2012, when he joined the protest for Nigeria in London. Then came the elections of 2015, Muhamadu Buhari’s coalition, the APC, using the threat of violence and sectarian uprising, pushed  Nigeria to its limits. Muhammadu Buhari himself promised a blood tide if he lost the election. These threats of violence, many Nigerians believed, pushed Jonathan to concede the election of 2015. 

As he famously said, not a single drop of the Nigerian blood was worth his political ambition.  In the minds of Jonathan’s supporters like Nnamdi Kanu, however, the use of violence, and the threat of violence was the cause for Jonathan’s “thoughtless” and “cowardly” concession. A mistake, in their estimation, and it rankled. But it also left an important example: threats can create political leverage in Nigeria. Muhammadu Buhari also did not leave folks like Nnamdi Kanu much choice. In the very first statements of his presidency at the United States Institute for Peace in Washington DC, the newly elected president Buhari was asked what he would do to bring political unity and restore Nigeria’s politically riven landscape. Buhari did not mince words. He was not a man who really minced words. He was very straight in saying he would discriminate against those who gave him only 5% of the votes. He very clearly triggered a political conflict. His immediate policies were unambiguous: he isolated the Igbo of the South East, just as Tinubu continues to do in his policies. 

Buhari was the first president of Nigeria to introduce brazen, discriminatory, and intensely prejudiced policies in the federal government. Of course, Ahmed Tinubu, the current president who succeeded Buhari has taken cronyism, nepotism, chauvinism, ethnic bias, and favoritism to the next level, but it was all started by Muhamadu Buhari, who created the gold standard for bullshit. These men have very little ideas about how to govern, and inspire a multiethnic society and nation like Nigeria. Their provincialism – the fact that they know nothing beyond the Maginot line of the regions where they are spawned – might because. But it has proved to be dangerous for Nigeria. 

The political and economic isolation, and the brazen, and selective discrimination against a very distinct region of Nigeria lends fuel to interminable conflicts. That was the basis on which the IPOB was formed, led by Nnamdi Kanu. The question that must really be asked is, what drove this very active pan Nigerian advocate, once committed to the indivisibility of Nigeria, to seek secession and self-determination? The answer is quite simple. Self-interest. It is granted unto man to live free or die, is an Igbo aphorism. Nnamdi Kanu was born during the Civil War in Nigeria. He is a child of war. He was actually first, a Biafran citizen, before he became Nigerian, with the resolution of the conflict in 1970, on the very unambiguous agreement of a “No Victor, no Vanquished.” 

But often suffering discrimination, political isolation, and marginalization, the Igbo regularly targeted by postwar policies have borne the scar of that war with silent pain. Children born long after the war continue to suffer the consequence. They are gated from federal jobs, their children have to be triply better to earn a spot at the federal government institutions; they are constantly targeted with violence in the cities in Nigeria where they are settled, like the current situation in Lagos.The federal government constantly plays possum on Igbo issues, and very indirectly supports the violence against the Igbo, and have offered them very little protection.There is very little federal government presence or infrastructural investment in the South East, and the Igbo are therefore, terribly alienated from the Nigerian project – that is, if such a project still exists. Indeed, to a vast majority of the Igbo, the idea of Nigeria is now, presently a fraud, because Nigeria never acts like any other nation, to guarantee the well-being of its citizens, and secure their equal rights.

 Nigeria has an Igbo problem: it is a strange love-hate situation.  This is the anger – the alienation of the young Igbo who no longer feels any obligation to, or love for Nigeria – which Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and the IPOB tapped into. To the young Igbo, if Ojukwu was Moses, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has become his Joshua, who would take them to the promised land of prosperity, economic justice, end of discrimination, equality, freedom, and that right implicit in self-determination, to chart their own course in a new nation,  outside of Nigeria, which to them has turned into a Zoo. 

A proactive national leader, intent on resolving the conflict, and pulling in the Igbo to participate in nation-building, would have found very peaceful ways to address the concern of the Igbo, and very possibly, strategically, delegitimize the IPOB. But Muhammadu Buhari wanted a fight, and an opportunity to conduct “a final solution,” to what he imagined was his Igbo problem. He instigated violence in Igbo land. Blamed the IPOB for the subversive military operations he personally authorized: the killings, the sackings of police stations, the push to delegitimize the sit-at-home protest, a most effective act of passive resistance, all in a bid to contain IPOB which had raised the first challenge to his presidency. Things went downhill from there: he arrested Nnamdi Kanu, charged him for treason and intimidation. The courts released him on bail. While on bail, armed soldiers were sent to raid his home in Afara-Ukwu. Nnamdi Kanu escaped to London, from where he engaged in a propaganda war with the Federal government, using his “Radio Biafra.” 

On a visit to Kenya, he was kidnapped and rendered by the Nigerian secret service, and brought home, and has been on trial and detention ever since. Fact is, Nnamdi Kanu is not guilty of any crimes. The courts have said that. To make his case even more curious, Nnamdi Kanu has never carried or advocated the raising of Arms against the Republic of Nigeria. He has always insisted on peaceful protest and passive resistance. Yet, those like the Boko Haram, who have killed Nigerians and intent on militarily toppling Nigeria have been tagged “repentant” and absorbed in the Nigeria Armed Forces by a Buhari policy. Sunday Igboho, the Yoruba secessionist activist, was just given a free ride by Tinubu. Nnamdi Kanu is, just because he is Igbo, the one in jail. 

The Federal Government is now engaged in political theater with this trial. Keeping Nnamdi Kanu in jail, while others walk free is now a direct insult to the Igbo, and it needs to stop. Nnamdi Kanu has done no wrong, and he must be set free.

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