BUHARI’S NEMESIS: Nnamdi Kanu returns to a hero’s welcome

By Obinna Ezugwu

In Aba on Thursday, most paper headlines had screamers about the Kanu’s bail conditions. At Mama Chinenye restaurant close to Echi Anu junction, walls were decorated with pro Biafra calendars with pictures of Kanu, Kaduna Nzeogwu, Emeka Ojukwu, Phillip Effiong, Benyamin Natenyahu and Donald Trump dressed in Igbo attire. And some of the captions were sometimes hilarious. “If Igbo people want Biafra, it will become a reality after my inauguration- Donald Trump.” “Biafra: Israel wants Igbo to return.”

A walk through Aba reveals a city that has suffered years of neglect. Gutters filled with stagnant water and oozing with stench; streets disfigured by erosion. But most residents seem to be more preoccupied with Kanu.

“When the news came that Kanu had been released, many trooped out to celebrate” said Ugwuode Sunday, about 25. “knockouts were being shot everywhere. But the joy soon disappeared because of the bail conditions.”

Reacting to the bail conditions, the apex Igbo socio-cultural organization, Ohanaeze Ndigbo said it was unrealistic. Speaking during the public lecture in honour of the late Senator Offia Nwali in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State on Wednesday, the President General of the group, Chief John Nnia Nwodo described the conditions as “an anathema to the constitution and untenable.”

“What kind of bail condition is this?” he queried. “Any bail condition that also infringes on the fundamental human rights of the beneficiary is unacceptable. It is an anathema to the constitution and untenable. The rule of law and separation of powers in a democracy abhor non-respect to court orders and while the three arms of government should perform their distinct functions without interference of any sort.”

Meanwhile, the IPOB and Kanu’s family had rejected the bail conditions as untenable. Concerns are already being expressed.  Some say if the agitation is not checked, it could lead to a conflict situation which according to them, the Igbo cannot afford.

In his house, Jekwu a young man had his radio turned to Radio Biafra and was nodding as the anchor harped on that the DSS led by ‘evil’ Daura had perfected plans in conjunction with South East governors opposed to Biafra, Okezie Ikpeazu, Rochas Okorocha and Willie Obiano to attack Kanu any day he is released from prison and claim it is unknown gunmen.

“Does Biafra reign in Lagos?” he asks. “It is the real thing here.”

Walking through the streets of South East’s major cities today, there is little to suggest a raging clamour for an independent state of Biafra. The pro Biafra newspapers that adorned newsstands only a few months ago have disappeared, protest rallies are hardly held and the sight of Biafra flags are no longer preponderant; all the result of the intervention by the Nigerian military who according to many reports, have carried out several extrajudicial executions of these agitators and have continued to harass vendors who have pro Biafra papers at their stands

However, the clamour which peaked in 2015 following the arrest of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the acclaimed leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), the most noticeable Biafra advocacy group, by the Department of Security Service (DSS) is far from subsiding. In fact, it has only taken new dimensions. Once seen as a venture undertaken by an inconsequential proportion of the Igbo population, it has evolved into a movement so intense that even the political leaders are standing to be counted

At the entrance of Enugu State Government House, one of the security personnel manning the security post hails a civilian by stander as an IPOB director, and the the by stander responds: “the zoo must fall” and what followed was a round of laughter by all within hearing distance.

But it is not difficult to tell it is not strictly a laughing matter, and the laughter had more to do with the manner in which the response was made than the response itself. Nearly 50 years after the bloody civil war which broke out following the declaration of an independent state of Biafra by the then governor of the old Eastern Region ended, signalling the death of the short-lived republic, the  ghost of Biafra has been resurrected and for many in Igbo land today, Biafra is a dream that must, in a sense, come to reality.

Few months ago, Biafra flags were defiantly smuggled into football match venues in the zone, sights of okada riders adorning their motorbikes with it were common place in Onitsha, the commercial city in Anambra State, and most newspaper stands in Aba, had more Biafra papers than conventional ones. Such is no longer the case with military onslaught, but ask a man walking down the street of Enugu about Biafra, and he would tell you how he expects that it comes sooner

Nna Ude is a mechanic who plies his trade along Enugu Road in Nsukka. Looking unkempt and struggling to fix a motorcycle brought by one of his customers, it would seem Ude would mind little about Biafra or its agitation, but as soon as the question was put across to him, he sprang to his feet.

“Ah, if I tell you the people who are working under ground to make sure Biafra is achieved, you will not believe. It is no longer a child’s play,” he said with an amusing seriousness. Asked however, to explain the activities of the said people working underground, he said he didn’t know them but just knew there were such people.

The encounter with him is symbolic. Most people believe that certain unknown persons are working somewhere and that through their activities, Biafra will come. Such persons may not, in essence, exist, but it matters little to individuals like Ude whose minds are already made up. Biafra war was fought between 1967 and 1970, precisely 30 months and it ended with the defeat of the seceding Easter Region, leaving in its wake, the death of nearly three million people according to unofficial figures, mostly Igbo through starvation and wanton destruction of properties.

General Yakubu Gowon, leader of the victorious Federal side gave a ‘no victor, no vanquished’ verdict and began what he called Reconciliation, Reconstruction and Rehabilitation programme, popularly called the 3Rs, with a view to reintegrating the East into the Nigerian state; but the programmes for many were mere pretence as according to them, no attempt was made in this regard.

Former governor of Akwa Ibom State, Senator Goodwill Akpabio captured this feeling in a speech he gave at the Silverbird TV man of the year event in 2012 where he asked an audience that comprised Gowon and other key participants in the war why the said reconstruction began in the West as opposed to the East were the war was actually fought.

“How come reconstruction started in the West when the war was actually fought in the East?” he asked, noting that no attempt was actually made to implement such in the war ravaged East. In a recent interview, he stressed that if indeed the Gowon regime wanted true reconciliation, he would not have given a meagre €20 to every account holder in the East who had more than that in his account before the war.

“They started the Third Mainland Bridge, the National Theatre, the international airport, and so on, in the West, while the war was fought in the Eastern region. And if we really wanted to ensure total reconciliation, how come every account holder in the eastern region was given only £20?” he asked.

“It did not matter whether your father had £10,000,000 or £50,000,000 before the war; you were given just £20. It was a take it or leave it situation. If your family survived and there was an account holder alive, he/she went to the bank, and collected just £20.

“Could £20 pounds solve the Kwashiorkor that we were seeing? Could it reconstruct the houses that were burnt? Could it produce food? A lot of other things happened that I did not mention on that occasion. Don’t forget that it was shortly after the war in 1971 that the policy of indigenisation started, where most of the foreign industries and companies were sold to Nigerians, and the war-ravaged eastern regions, which include the entire South-South and the rest of them, could not buy, because the people who did not have money to even feed or clothe himself would have had  money to buy any industry.

“They needed money from reconstruction, and I would have thought that reconstruction would have also started from the East,” he observed. The East, especially the Igbo continued to face discrimination and although resurgence clamour for Biafra is largely a recent phenomenon, many say it never really died because the Igbo were never fully accepted back into Nigeria

“Why am I now saying let us go if I am not saying we should go? I am saying let us go because the Nigerian nation has neglected us, they don’t see us as a part of the country,” noted Chief Anselm Njoku, chairman, Ndigbo United Association, an apex political pressure group of Ndigbo in Lagos in an interview with Business Hallmark. He explained that the discrimination the Igbo continue to face is responsible for the growing agitations, assuring that such would die down as soon as the issues were addressed.

“What makes Ndigbo part of this country? Let me tell you, we have 36 states in Nigeria plus Abuja, making it 37, and we have six geopolitical zones. The Igbo have only five states out of the 37, while some others have six or seven. That is marginalization. Yet, states are indices for revenue allocation. The two more states that ought to have come from the South East and the revenue, tell me how much it would have been.

“Again, we have 774 local governments in this country, if you divide that number by six zones, it will give you 129. Each zone will have 129 local governments, but Ndigbo have only 95 out of 774, and there are six zones. Remove 94 from 129 that we ought to have, it is 37 local governments lost. Yet, local government is one of the indices for revenue allocation in this country. Is it fair? We have 360 members of the House of Representatives, if there is equity, each zone should should produce 60. How many do we have in the South East?

A little over 30 members. And this is a house where the fate of every Nigerian is determined. In that house, Ndigbo are non sequitur, they are inconsequential. Some other zones have twice what we have. So when people agitate, why should you go and kill them for agitating? Then you come to the Senate, we have 109 senators.

“How many do the Igbo have? Only 15. If you look at the population of Ndigbo in this country, there is no doubt that Ndigbo are the most populous because they are mobile, they move around. If you go to Kano, you see plenty of Ndigbo, same as Katsina and every nook and cranny of this country. Because they believe in one Nigeria, there is no other ethnic group that believe in one Nigeria more than the Igbo. An Igbo man will go to an interior Hausa village and build a house, they will go to remote parts of other zones and build their houses and take it as home.

“When you build a house in a place, you take it as home. Are you going to do anything that would destroy that place? The answer is no. But Ndigbo are completely shut out in the governance of the country, and it is worse in this particular government, even in appointments. It is a very bad omen. The government should dialogue with the people, dialogue with the leaders, find out why the agitation. You will discover that the Igbo man does not want to secede and does not want to fight war.

“They have fought war, they know what it is, they don’t want to fight again, but at the same time, they don’t want to continue to be in the doldrums in a country that they have contributed immensely to its progress and development. So, the Igbo agitators should not be taken as enemies of the country, there ought to be negotiation. I can bet that if there is a true negotiation, there will be truce. These things will fizzle out.

In 1999, Indian trained lawyer and political scientist, Ralf Uwazurike formed the Movement for the Actualisation of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB). It was the first group to boldly advocate for Biafra since 1970 when the civil war ended. He was accused of treason and incarcerated by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration in 2005. He would stay in prison till 2007 before being released.

MASSOB membership grew rapidly, especially among the youths. But sometimes in 2005, following Uwazurike’s imprisonment, there was heavy military onslaught against them. Between 2005 and 2006, many MASSOB members were gunned down in Anambra particularly and to a large degree, they were subdued. But they never really went away.

In 2012, Kanu who originally was with MASSOB but broke away after altercations with Uwazurike launched Radio Biafra from his base in London, and through his broadcast, mounted intense Pro Biafra campaigns that soon won over a huge population of Igbo youths, some of who are now members of the IPOB.

Kanu who was initially passed off as a rabble-rauser by the Igbo political elite would soon turn into a cult hero. In 2015 after Muhammadu Buhari took power, he was arrested in Lagos and has since remained in detention. If by his arrest, the Buhari administration hoped to silence the growing calls for Biafra, he ended up achieving the opposite. The arrest triggered street protests across the South East and the consequent massacre of protesters by security agencies. What was initially a local affair soon began to grab international headline.

In November 2016, Amnesty International (AI) alleged that the Nigerian military had killed at least 150 pro Biafra agitators, but said the number is likely higher. The unfolding events drew reactions from many. Aka Ikenga, an Igbo think tank group called for probe. South East Senate caucus followed suit. Several political figures in the country, including the Ekiti State governor, Ayo Fayose; former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode; former CBN governor, Prof Chukwuma Soludo; former presidential candidate, Prof Pat Utomi and others began to lend voices in support of Kanu and his IPOB.

The governors of South East who had maintained sealed lips came out of their shells to voice their support and call for his release. In the South East, Kanu’s support has since transcended the IPOB and Biafra agitation, he is seen as a symbol of the Igbo oppression and struggle. Last week when an Abuja court presided over by Justice Binta Nyako granted him bail, it was such a cheerful news, but soon the stringent conditions attached to the it began to sink in, and the joy which greeted the news soon vanished.

“This is just happening because the Igbo no longer count in Nigeria which is a consequence of the war,” said Mr Matt Ugwuanyi, a middle aged man in Ede Oballa community, Enugu State.

A group of men and boys had gathered at the community square and the topic of discussion was Kanu’s bail and the conditions attached to it.

“This cannot happen to a Yoruba person,” Ugwuanyi continued. “It is sad, but let’s all see how things develop.” The younger members of the group were more belligerent. Many who spoke said it was possible it could lead to a conflict situation and if such be the case, they would be ready to fight.

In Abakailiki, visibly upset PDP chieftain, Abia Onyike says Kanu’s travail is a continuation of the anti Igbo policy of the northern oligarchy. He noted that the only way to end agitation was for Buhari to engage the Igbo in a dialogue in which he must be ready to make concessions, but regretted that Buhari and the North were not ready for any concession.

“The ruling oligarchy in Northern Nigeria is not ready for concession, they have never been ready for any sort of concession. Right from the coup of July 1966 which was led by Multala Muhammed, and Buhari was his helmsman, their posture has not changed.

“Every policy is geared towards the annihilation of the Igbo,” he alleged. “The annihilation of the Niger Delta, and yet these are the areas from where the resources that sustains the country are gotten.”

Speaking to Business Hallmark recently, Dr Felix Oragwu, the scientist who led the team that produced the famous ‘Ogbunigwe’ and other weapons used by Biafran soldiers during the civil war warned that Ndigbo cannot afford to fight another war. He advised Ndigbo to understand that they are on their own in the country and going into any sort of conflict would be a costly mistake.

“The point is, Igbo need Nigeria more than Nigeria need Igbo. Whether we like it or not, we must accept we cannot survive on our own. So, we will never leave Nigeria. If we leave Nigeria, we will be worse off, not only worse off, we might become extinct because everybody will smuggle himself out to America and Europe and the place will be vacant. That is what we should be telling our people.

“The Igbo should accept that we are on our own. We have no friends at all, you are my friend if our interests coincides, so whose interests coincides with that of Ndigbo? These people called Avengers blowing up pipelines and so on, they are just fighting for themselves, they are giving them 13 percent. If I were them, I would be fighting like the Yoruba are doing, for regional autonomy. No need to destroy myself, you blow up pipelines, the crude will enter the water  fisher men won’t get fish, they don’t think.”

Onyike however, disagrees. He insisted that there is no way the current agitation will lead to war as it is not every Igbo person that is agitating.