Nnamdi Kanu And The Cry For Biafra, By Femi Fani-Kayode

Nnamdi Kanu And The Cry For Biafra, By Femi

Fani-Kayode

…the biggest favour that President Buhari’s

security agencies could have done for the

Biafran cause was to lock up Mr. Kanu and

thereby transform him from being a little-known

secessionist into the living symbol of the Biafran

struggle, a respected freedom fighter, a

champion of the Igbo people and an

internationally-acclaimed political prisoner.

I am not a Biafran and neither am I Igbo. I do

however believe that it is the inalienable right of

any human being or ethnic nationality to aspire

to be free and to be able to determine their own

destiny. The right of self-determination is

enshrined in international law and it is

guaranteed by every moral structure known to

man.

It is a right that has been exercised successfully

over and over again in world history and it has

led to the creation of new nations which were

carved out of older ones. The denial of that right

and the suppression and persecution of those

who attempt to exercise it leads to nothing but

defiance, dissent and resistance and, if not

properly managed, it eventually spills over into

war and carnage.

This has been the primary cause of most of

history’s most brutal civil wars, including the

American, Russian, French, English, Indian, Sri

Lankan, Sudanese, Nigerian, Angolan, Congolese,

Zimbabwean, Yugoslavian, Ukrainian, Nicaraguan,

Cuban, Irish, Syrian, Libyan, Indonesian, Korean,

Vietnamese, Spanish, Iraqi, Italian, Lebanese

ones and countless others. I do not believe in

violent change and neither do I believe in war,

revolution, terror or the use of arms in the

pursuance of even the most noble causes.

I do however believe in the power of ideas and

the right of any man, woman or people to yearn

to be free from bondage and to peacefully and

freely express that yearning. It is in this context

that I situate my belief in and support for those

that view the Nigerian Federation as an

oppressive entity which has effectively enslaved

its people in an attempt to create what is

essentially an artificial and unworkable state.

Those who believe in Nigeria have every right to

continue to do so and to voice their resolve to

keep Nigeria one. What they do not have the

right to do is to refuse to offer the same degree

of freedom of expression to those who do not

believe in a united Nigeria and who instead

believe in the peaceful dissolution of our nation

to speak their minds and voice their views. What

is good for the goose is surely good for the

gander. You cannot grant one side of the divide

freedom of expression whilst you deny it to the

other.

The biggest mistake and miscalculation of his

administration so far is not the ruthless

implementation of its patently and monstrously

unapologetic northern and Islamic agenda but

rather its absurd resolve to lock up Mr. Kanu

indefinitely and to effectively throw the key away

simply because he dared to call for the

establishment of Biafra.

This is all the more so because freedom of

expression is the lifeblood of any democracy. It

must be accorded in equal measure to those

who believe in Nigeria and to those who do not.

It is in this light that we must consider the plight

of Mr. Nnamdi Kanu, the director of Radio Biafra

and the man that has been described by the Igbo

World Assembly as “Buhari’s first political

prisoner”.

We may not like his style, we may not like his

radio station, we may not share his views or

approve of his methods but one thing that we

cannot take from Mr. Kanu is his right to hold

such views and to express them in a peaceful

and lawful manner no matter how distasteful

those views may be to some. To deny him this

most basic human right is not only an act of

intellectual terrorism but it is also the most

grave and barbaric manifestation of what is

essentially an evolving police state where

different or contrary views cannot be

accommodated by those in power.

When Mr. Alex Salmon and his Scottish

Nationalist Party began the agitation for the

dissolution of the United Kingdom and for the

establishment of Scottish independence many

years ago they were not charged to court, locked

up indefinitely or murdered by the British

authorities but instead they were eventually

given the opportunity to participate in a

referendum and test their ideas. The same thing

happened in the Catalan region of Spain where

the agitation for the establishment of a new

nation is compelling and very popular.

The same thing happened a number of years ago

in the Quebec region of Canada. It also

happened in a region called East Timor which

opted to leave Indonesia and in Singapore which

opted to leave Malaysia. The same process was

adopted when Georgia, the Ukraine and all the

other former Soviet states opted to leave Russia

and when the Czech Republic opted to break off

from Slovakia. The utility and importance of

conducting a referendum on such matters in

order to determine the true will of the people

and to honour the findings of that referendum

cannot be underestimated and it remains the

only path for peace.

Sadly President Buhari who, like most in his

generation, are still stuck in the mindset of a civil

war general, has refused to learn from this. The

biggest mistake and miscalculation of his

administration so far is not the ruthless

implementation of its patently and monstrously

unapologetic northern and Islamic agenda but

rather its absurd resolve to lock up Mr. Kanu

indefinitely and to effectively throw the key away

simply because he dared to call for the

establishment of Biafra.

I have not always been on the same page with

our Igbo brothers, yet despite that one thing is

clear: only the callous would deny the fact that

they have suffered immeasurably in the Nigerian

Federation over the last 50 years…Only the

uninformed would deny the fact that they have

been butchered, murdered, persecuted, broken,

humiliated, insulted, cheated and treated with

contempt and disdain more than any other ethnic

group in the country since July 1966.

As far as I am aware Mr. Kanu has not used or

advocated the use of violence whilst expressing

himself and neither has any of his supporters.

One therefore wonders what has panicked the

Federal Government to such a point that they

not only have to lock him up but that they also

have to violate the law of the land by not

allowing him to see his lawyer and by not

presenting him before a court of law and

charging him within the constitutionally-

prescribed three days.

State-sponsored violence and intimidation, the

violation of human rights, illegal incarceration,

the murder of innocents and the vicious

suppression of legitimate ideas leads to nothing

but hardened hearts, greater defiance and the

spread of anger and dissent. The principle is

simple and clear: the more you fan the flame of

tyranny and repression the more the passion and

fire of liberty spreads.

It follows that the biggest favour that President

Buhari’s security agencies could have done for

the Biafran cause was to lock up Mr. Kanu and

thereby transform him from being a little-known

secessionist into the living symbol of the Biafran

struggle, a respected freedom fighter, a

champion of the Igbo people and an

internationally-acclaimed political prisoner.

It is no wonder that leading politicians from all

over the world, including the former Home

Secretary and former Leader of the Labour Party

in the United Kingdom, Mrs. Harriet Harman QC,

have called for his release. The Russian and

Israeli governments have also expressed concern

and done the same.

Their call was the right and proper thing to do

and I add my voice to that call. I have never met

or spoken to Mr. Kanu but I am moved by his

passion and courage. I am also persuaded by the

logic and force of his public assertions. He has

made a compelling case for the establishment of

Biafra and millions of young Igbos from all over

the world have bought into it.

What the Nigerian state is confronted with in the

new generation of Igbos who refuse to be cowed

is a time-bomb. Unlike their fathers they cannot

be appeased or intimidated. They are not fearful

of the prospect of a second civil war. They are

not prepared to settle for crumbs and neither do

they fear death, conflict, defeat, incarceration,

butchery or persecution….They are imbued with

a spirit that cannot be suppressed and the more

they cry “Biafra”, the more the spirits of the

millions who were slaughtered on the Biafran

side during the civil war are invoked. The more

they cry “Biafra”, the more the souls of the

hundreds of thousands of their people who were

butchered during the barbaric pogroms in the

north in the mid-60’s and thereafter are

remembered. The more they cry “Biafra”, the

more they remember how their fathers were

stripped of everything after the civil war and how

they have been denied the opportunity to rise to

the highest office in the land.

It is left for those that do not agree with him to

make a better case and to stem the Biafran tide.

That is the monumental challenge that those

who do not agree with Mr. Kanu’s views or his

methods have. I have not always been on the

same page with our Igbo brothers, yet despite

that one thing is clear: only the callous would

deny the fact that they have suffered

immeasurably in the Nigerian Federation over the

last 50 years.

Only the uninformed would deny the fact that

they have been butchered, murdered, persecuted,

broken, humiliated, insulted, cheated and treated

with contempt and disdain more than any other

ethnic group in the country since July 1966.

What the Nigerian state is confronted with in the

new generation of Igbos who refuse to be cowed

is a time-bomb. Unlike their fathers they cannot

be appeased or intimidated. They are not fearful

of the prospect of a second civil war. They are

not prepared to settle for crumbs and neither do

they fear death, conflict, defeat, incarceration,

butchery or persecution.

They are imbued with a spirit that cannot be

suppressed and the more they cry “Biafra”, the

more the spirits of the millions who were

slaughtered on the Biafran side during the civil

war are invoked. The more they cry “Biafra”, the

more the souls of the hundreds of thousands of

their people who were butchered during the

barbaric pogroms in the north in the mid-60’s

and thereafter are remembered. The more they

cry “Biafra”, the more they remember how their

fathers were stripped of everything after the civil

war and how they have been denied the

opportunity to rise to the highest office in the

land. The more they cry ”Biafra”, the more they

acknowledge and recognise the bitter fact that

the Buhari administration regard their kith and

kin as nothing more than third class citizens and

pitiable prisoners of war. The worst thing that

the Nigerian authorities can do is to treat them

with levity or contempt.

They are angry, they are fed up, they refuse to

be enslaved, they want a brighter future and they

have come to realise that they have nothing to

lose. The most inappropriate thing that President

Buhari can do is to continue to underestimate

the power of their resolve or the clarity of their

intent. The worst thing that they can do is to

begin to jail them, to shed their blood and to

take their lives.

The more you lock up the Biafrans, the more

they will rise up. The more you mock them, the

more they will shout. The more you kill them, the

more their anger will be kindled. The more you

deny them, the more they will wax stronger. The

more you treat them with disdain, the more they

will defy you. The more you treat them like

slaves the more they will aspire to break off and

take their destiny into their own hands. You

cannot resist an idea whose time has come.

The more you lock up the Biafrans, the more

they will rise up. The more you mock them, the

more they will shout. The more you kill them, the

more their anger will be kindled. The more you

deny them, the more they will wax stronger. The

more you treat them with disdain, the more they

will defy you. The more you treat them like

slaves the more they will aspire to break off and

take their destiny into their own hands. You

cannot resist an idea whose time has come.

This is a fact that we must all accept and it is

with this in mind that I urge President Buhari and

the Federal Government to not only release Mr.

Nnamdi Kanu but also to tread with the utmost

restraint and caution when dealing with those

who are agitating for Biafra.