“Cowards die a million times before their death.”
The news that the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has been rearrested and repatriated to Nigeria and in DSS custody may have come to many as a surprise. It may have also gladden the hearts of many, especially those who have been calling for his head.
Nigeria’s minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, broke the news of Nnamdi Kanu’s re-arrest in a press conference, Tuesday, June 29, 2021. “Self-acclaimed leader of the proscribed secessionist Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, has been arrested through the collaborative efforts of Nigerian intelligence and security services,” the minister announced gleefully, almost gloating over the big catch.
“He has been brought back to Nigeria in order to continue facing trial after disappearing while on bail regarding 11- count charge against him,” Malami announced, exhuding air of personal fulfilment, satisfaction and importance.
The Minister did not give details as to where Kanu was “intercepted,” or the process of his extradition, whether it follows laid down universally acceptable extradition process. Was Nnamdi Kanu arrested alone, or with others?
Britain has washed its hands off Nnamdi Kanu’s re-arrest. In a statement issued by the Foreign Office, it said Nnamdi Kanu “was not arrested within its territory.”
It was also alleged that Nnamdi Kanu was arrested in Ethiopia. But this could not be independently verified.
The spokesperson of the indigenous people of Biafra (Ipob), Emma Powerful, in a statement, Wednesday, by the group, said that Nnamdi Kanu was “unlawfully arrested in Kenya, detained and extradited to Nigeria;” after being subjected to what the group described as “extraordinary rendition.”
In a swift reaction, the Kenyan High Commissioner to Nigeria denied that Nnamdi Kanu was arrested in their country and challenged anyone with evidence to the contrary to come forward with it.
And so the circumstance of Nnamdi Kanu’s arrest and location has remained a matter of conjecture and controversy. Be that as it may, what the arrest or re-arrest of Nnamdi Kanu has clearly demonstrated is that the Nigeria’s intelligence and security agencies are still working.
One would have wished the swiftness and finesse with which this “collaborative effort,” according to Justice Minister, was carried out, leading to Nnamdi Kanu’s re-arrest, was replicated here at home for the arrest, detention and trial of all other criminal elements in Nigeria, particularly boko haram terrorists, imported Fulani jihadists masquerading as herdsmen, forest bandits and kidnappers who are killing and maiming Nigerians across the country. Yet, some prominent Northern elements are openly fronting for these criminals, asking for amnesty, being their spokespersons and serving as intermediaries in the negotiation and huge payment of ransom money to these criminals. And our security agencies turned a blind eye and pretended to be helpless.
Each time questions are raised as to why persons like Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, a prominent Islamic cleric, Prof. Usman Yusuf, the dismissed former NIHS executive secretary, Gov. Bello Masari of Katsina state, including some security personnel, would be found posing in group photographs with the bandits and kidnappers, they would evade the answer. They instead diverted attention to how underfunded and ill-quipped our security agencies are and the need to give them more money.
And so these criminals become more emboldened and encouraged to make life more miserable to poor Nigerian citizens. Who is going to arrest these people and put them to trial the same way Nnamdi Kanu has been arrested to face trial? Where there is different strokes for different folks, equity and justice becomes selective. Justice is blind. It should be no respecter of persons, tribe, religion, or party affiliation.
Just recently, a report from the Council on Foreign Relations indicates that a total of over 51,000 people had been killed by boko haram alone in Nigeria and 2.4 million people internally displaced.
The Global Terrorism Index (GTI), in 2018, reported that Fulani herdsmen, classified as the “4th most deadly terror group in the world,” were responsible for the majority of terror related deaths in Nigeria at more than 2,000 fatalities. The Daily Trust Newspaper of Sunday, March 14, 2021, reported in the first two months of 2021 (January-February), 212 people were killed in Kaduna state alone following several attacks by bandits. And the total number of casualties in 2020 in Kaduna state alone was 937.
But all these statistics seem not to mean anything to the government which has continued to spend millions of naira in rehabilitating the so-called repentant terrorists.
Neither the federal government, nor any reputable international non governmental organization (NGO) has given us the number of people which the Indigenous people of Biafra (Ipob) has killed so far. In the absence of any credible report, any allegation or accusation flys in the air.
If Nigeria could synergize and mobilize its intelligence resources to track down and arrest Nnamdi Kanu outside the shores, with the collaboration of Interpol, what then stops the country and these agencies from, not only arresting all the criminal elements holding sway within our territorial borders, but also secure the release of all the abducted people still in the custody of these criminal elements, especially innocent school children and the Leah Sharibu?
This surprise and uncommon feat of our intelligence further lends credence and tends to vindicate those who have been alleging that those in government and the Nigerian security agencies indeed know more than they are willing to admit on the worsening security situation in the country.
It was Nigeria’s former Minister of defense and a one time Chief of Srmy Dtaff, Gen. Theophilus Danjuma (retd) who, first, raised this allegation. He accused the Nigeria Armed forces of “aiding bandits and Fulani herdsmen attacks on communities across the country.” Speaking at the convocation of the Taraba state University in Jalingo, Gen Danjuma said, “The armed forces are not neutral. They collude with the armed bandits that kill people, kill Nigerians. They facilitate their movement. They cover them. If you are depending on the armed forces to stop the killings, you will die one by one.”
He did not mince words when he said that “the military could not be totally relied upon for the security of the citizenry.” That was way back in 2018!
Recently, Sheikh Gumi repeated the same allegation of collusion against the armed forces, against which the DSS invited him, as some would say, just to fulfill all righteousness! There seems to be no real intention to prosecute him.
Conversely, in 2016, Amnesty International reported that “an on-the-ground investigation has confirmed that the Nigerian army gunned down unarmed people ahead of May planned pro-Biafran commemoration events in Onitsha, Anambra state.” The report states, “Evidence gathered from eyewitnesses, morgues and hospitals confirms that between 29-30 May 2016, the Nigerian military opened fire on members of the Indigenous people of Biafra (IPOB), supporters and bystanders at three locations in the town…an outrageous use of unnecessary and excessive force which resulted in multiple deaths and injuries.”
While the federal government under President Muhammadu Buhari initiated the policy of “deradicalization and rehabilitation” of captured boko haram terrorists, the same government is indirectly “radicalizing” self determination agitators by the way and manner it had violently dealt with them.
Since the arrest of Nnamdi Kanu, the Nigerian state has been trying to engage in some flurry of activity to give a semblance of picture that it is serious to tackle insecurity in the land.
The latest is the DSS invasion of the Yoruba nation activist, Sunday Igboho Adeyemo, Thursday, June 2, 2021 in which the Service admitted it killed two persons, arrested about a dozen persons in the operation and taken to Abuja. The Service displayed wide range of ammunition allegedly recovered from Igboho’s residence. Hmmm!
Almost at the same time, the military announced that it had arrested one of the commanders of the Islamic State for West African Province (ISWAP) in Ogun state on his way to Lagos. We commend these agencies for their effort. But let it be that they are communicating to Nigerians in a most sincere manner.
With the invasion of Sunday Adeyemo residence, coming few days after the arrest of Nnamdi Kanu, the Buhari-led government appears to have started an all out war against those agitating for freedom and self determination. Yet at the same time the government is allowing bandits, kidnappers, killer Fulani herdsmen and boko haram terrorists a free rein across the land, with some sitting governors telling us not to compare bandits to separatist agitators! Nothing can be as scandalous as that. No one needs to be told what the unfolding events portend. Everyone has to read the handwriting on the wall and discern for himself. For the Afenifere, the Yoruba socio-cultural group, “dark cloud is descending on Nigeria.”
It will be tragic for the Igbos if they should abandon Nnamdi Kanu to die. Ndigbo should not replicate the experience of the Jewish people who conspired to kill one of their own. Granted, Nnamdi Kanu has badly hurt so many a feeling. But the true spirit of Igbo does not permit turning back at a kinsman in danger. Blood, they say, is thicker than water. Nnamdi Kanu is not the biggest problem of Nigeria. We must not be hoodwinked into believing false narratives. Nnamdi Kanu is a product of Nigeria’s abnominable system. So also Sunday Adeyemo, a k.a Igboho, Asari Dokubo, Government Ekpomoukpolo a.k.a Tompolo, Muhammed Yusuf, etc. Ndigbo particularly must that an adequate medical and formidable legal assistance is rendered to Nnamdi Kanu, even in his custody.
A people that conspired to kill their kinsmen worrier will definitely have nobody to defend them against external aggression on the day of battle. An elder will not be in the house and the goat die in titters. Let the stubborn chicken first be rescued from the claws of the hawk before blaming it’s reckless voyage. You can’t disown your own.
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NB: Pascal Chimezie, a freelance journalist, civil rights activist and former Secretary General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo in Lagos, writes in from Lagos.
