A freedom fighter that lives in peace with his oppressor is compromised
Forcing fugitives back home is a trademark of governments under the watch of Maj-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari in military or civilian garb.
Backspace to 1984 when Gen. Buhari, head of the junta that had toppled Sokoto-born Shehu Shagari then attempted to forcefully crate home Shagari’s Transport Minister, Alhaji Umaru Dikko, as diplomatic cargo from United Kingdom.
Dikko was very influential in the Second Republic government and was the Man Friday of President Shagari [God, bless his soul] who the marauding military junta targeted. But he slipped out of Nigeria to the UK. The regime trailed him and he was almost brought home, caged in a crate but for the diligent British security forces.
Thirty-seven years later, a civilian Buhari government now a converted democrat was at it again, bringing home a perceived fugitive, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, a separatist agitator for an independent state of Biafra out of Nigeria. Unlike Dikko whose abduction was foiled, Kanu was not lucky. He was successfully brought home against his wish and possibly without his knowing this time from Kenya. What does it show? A leopard can never change its spots even with age and mode of government.
The excitement of the Federal Government over the capture of the leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, IPOB, last week can be likened to a football player who scores a hand goal and expects cheers instead of jeers.
There is nothing to cheer about when an embattled nation, engulfed in serious insecurity challenges, has to fritter enormous energy and resources in search of one man whose self-determination campaign has caught global attention. To deny that he was responding to duty calls and the obvious injustice against Ndigbo is to live a lie.
Kanu’s methods may be objectionable but it does not deny that he has sufficient grounds to campaign for Biafra. Agitation is well within the right of a dissatisfied citizen enjoying the protection of the human rights requirements.
The use of the northern lingua franca, other than English, during the press conference to announce Kanu’s arrest confirmed that the target audience is not mistakable.
However, the good thing is that Kanu, like every freedom fighter before him, knows that going into a self-determination struggle, especially in Africa where human rights are more respected in the breach, comes with certain hazards. To begin with, you have to make up your mind not to fear four things, torture, prison, exile, and death.
Nelson Mandela was not afraid of any of the above and he ended up liberating his people from the apartheid and becoming their President. He died celebrated as a hero and one of the greatest men of his time.
Nnamdi Kanu has tasted three already, torture, exile, and prison. The next is death which only his creator can determine the timing. His place in history will depend on several variables, including but not limited to his sincerity to the struggle, tactics, and resolve to soldier on in the face of daunting odds.
Biafra is an idea whose time has arrived; it will never die. The shape it takes now and in the future is already destined and nobody, no matter how powerful, will change it. Biafra is beyond any individual; it is a brand that draws huge emotions and needs to be handled with utmost care because it belongs to people who have made enormous sacrifices including the shedding of the blood of not just soldiers but over three million men, women, and children.
If MNK was not expecting the worst when he embarked on this journey then he is the wrong man for the struggle.
However, one thing MNK needs to know–and history is a witness–is that suffering in a struggle is a catalyst, not a demoralizer unless he is not a true freedom fighter.
But to go far in such a task and achieve results, one’s discretion must be exceptional. Therefore, MNK will need to pick up all the good things that confinement offers. Surely, confinement is a time to take stock after which he is expected to come out better equipped and more experienced.
God forbid, but if death meets him there, it then will deepen the struggle and make a martyr out of him. Saint Stephen was the first martyr in Christian history; after that, many more joined him, including all of the 12 apostles excluding John. For more than 2,000 years, these martyrs are still being honoured across the globe but nobody remembers their traducers.
When MNK started this crusade with the founding of Biafra Radio, nobody took him seriously. He had to change his language to the uncouth to attract an audience to his broadcasts. This change put some of us off to the point that he received the broadsides of this column on several occasions. Despite that, I never ceased to commend his zeal and tenacity.
In fact, in one of my advisories to MNK since he came on the scene, I used the great saying of Sun Tzu to buttress the importance of tactics in a struggle like this. The Chinese notable military strategist is on the marble to have said, “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat”. In other words, one needs all the craftiness of the tortoise and the bravery of the lion to enter the terrain.
The shortcomings of MNK is a story for another day. Suffice it to ask, Did he need to be at loggerheads with the umbrella body of Ndigbo, Ohanaeze? The answer is NO. Did he need to embarrass the former Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu in faraway Nuremberg, Germany? Despite that, the senator contributed to securing his release from detention. Did he need to abuse or disrespect the Igbo elite to reach his destination?
Moving forward, however, our concern now should be the message, not the messenger. And the message in this instance is Biafra as a product of injustice.
The latest dramatic arrest of MNK has exposed the obvious contradictions of the federal administration under Buhari. The zeal, will, and determination the government put into the manhunt for MNK, including breaking international laws, has brought to the fore the long-held view that nothing activates this government like IPOB matters.
If a fraction of the energy and resources pooled together to arrest MNK in faraway Kenya had been used for other national challenges, security and economy, the nation won’t be in a combat
Since 2009 when Abubakar Shekau led a rebellion against the nation, this regime, for six years, was unable to track him until he had to kill himself this year during an internal squabble in the gang. Some schoolgirls from Chibok have remained captive in the forest for years and the Nigerian government could not do anything meaningful. Teenage schoolgirl, Leah Shuaribu, from Dapichi secondary school, held by Boko Haram for professing Jesus Christ is still in the forest with her captors while the regime is feigning helplessness.
Miyetti Allah has copiously coordinated the menacing activities of the Fulani herdsmen. Rather than get a reprimand, they have continued to wax strong and enjoy special treatment and body language protection.
The day MNK was taken into custody by this government, more than 200 schoolgirls from Niger State were languishing in the bandits’ den and it was not a priority for a government whose primary duty is to secure the life and property of its citizens. The way the nabbing of Kanu enlivens this government will make one think it has boxed all the nation’s problems and buried Biafra.
The truth is that the incarceration or even death of MNK will not in any way diminish the Biafra struggle. Not at all. Biafra preceded Kanu and will not end with him. Rather than diminish, eliminating Kanu will catalyze it. If anything will diminish the Biafra struggle, it will be a deliberate policy to accommodate Ndigbo in the Nigerian state. The Biafra struggle will die down the day Ndigbo are allowed equal opportunities in Nigeria. The Biafra issue will whittle down if fairness and equity are used as the basis for the sharing of the nation’s commonwealth.
Perhaps Biafra can only begin to get a new direction if by 2023 a President of Igbo extraction emerges in the country based on justice and fair play. If none or all of these things happen, Kanu’s incarceration, rather than dim, will accelerate the struggle.
When Kanu started this phase of the Biafra struggle with the formation of IPOB, less than 30 per cent of Ndigbo were interested in it. But today due to the mishandling and continuous marginalization of Ndigbo by this regime, over 75 per cent of the people are thinking and praying for Biafra.
If we are searching for those fertilizing the Biafra struggle, the direction to look is at Aso Rock where the decision to reduce Ndigbo as a dot in the circle is being fashioned. This is the truth but we know as George Orwell puts it, “The further a society drifts from the truth the more it will hate those who speak it.” God, help us to know the truth because it will save us as individuals and as a country.
Senator Chris Ngige, the Labour & Productivity Minister, said recently that President Buhari is ready to talk with IPOB. This is the time.
God, bless Nigeria.
