“Live the
life of your dreams. Be brave enough to live the life of your dreams according
to your vision and purpose instead of the expectations and opinion of others.
Don’t let others tell you what you can’t do. Don’t let the limitations of
others limit your vision. If you can remove your self-doubt and believe in
yourself, you can achieve what you never thought possible.”
Enter Nnamdi
Kenny Okwu Kanu, the new kid on the block. The above quote by a great thinker,
Roy T. Benett captures the power of vision and self-belief, which the
British-Nigerian political activist now represents. He is a man of the moment
and hate or love him, his name has got stuck in the minds of the majority of
Nigerians. And perhaps no name in the country today rings a bell like that of
the prisoner of conscience.
Surprisingly,
before now, Kanu who doubles as the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra
(IPOB) and director of a London-based radio station, Radio Biafra was literally
unknown in Nigeria. But out of the
blues, the Abia State born activist became a household name when on October 14,
2015, he was arrested by the agents of the Federal Government, the Department
of State Security (DSS) in his hotel room, Golden Tulip Essential Hotel, Ikeja,
Lagos State on treason charges. He was thereafter detained in jail. His arrest
and detention marked the beginning of the making of today’s Igbo hero. Many
would agree that since his arrest on that fateful day, the popularity of the
young man with a heart of steel has soared like an eagle.
The man Nnamdi
Kanu was
born in Isiama Afara, Abia State, Nigeria. His father is Eze Israel Okwu Kanu
and his mother Ugoeze Nnenne Kanu. He attended Library Avenue Primary School
(now part of Government House, Umuahia) and went to Government College Umuahia
for his secondary education. The freedom fighter later gained admission to the
University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN), where he could not finish due to incessant
strikes before he left for London to complete his tertiary education. By 1987,
Nnamdi was merely an innocent Geography major, resident at Akintola Hall of the
UNN. Not given to half measures and as one of those gifted in the pursuit of
their dreams, Nnamdi’s path would prove to be thorny, uncommon and epochal. It
is little wonder that he did not have the patience to tarry along with other
normal students before going abroad for his studies.
While in
London, Kanu became an activist and freedom fighter with the sole aim of
liberating the people of Biafra who he believes are being oppressed in Nigeria.
One of the greatest instruments he deployed to achieve that dream was the Radio
Biafra with which he continuously lampooned the Federal Government. A man of
his conviction, he took his activities to the extreme and did not pretend that
he could even pay the supreme price for the liberation of his people. The IPOB
leader was once quoted to have said he is an Igbo Jew, part of a group who
believe they are descendants of the lost tribe of Israel who settled in West
Africa.
Speaking
ahead of the 50th anniversary of Biafran war to Al-Jazeera despite being banned
by the court not to grant interviews, Kanu had made it clear that the demand
for the secession of Ndigbo from Nigeria is because the nation seems not to be
functioning and can never function.
He decried
the marginalisation of the Igbo in Nigeria, saying that they have been
prevented from aspiring to assume important positions in the country. Kanu like
in the words of Philip Brooks, believes that, “no man has come to true
greatness who has not felt that his life belongs to his race, and that which
God gives to him, He gives him for mankind”.
Hero or villain
For Kanu,
many believe that heroism was thrust on him by President Muhammadu Buhari’s
administration following his arrest, detention and eventual release on bail. The
news of the arrest of Mr Kanu generated protests across parts of Delta, Enugu,
Rivers, Cross River, Abia, Imo, and Anambra states.
The argument
is that the activist has been operating long before the All Progressives
Congress (APC) government came on board and many Nigerians hardly knew that any
name like Nnamdi Kanu ever existed. The permutation is that the strategy
adopted by the government through the Department of State Security (DSS)
magnified IPOB, which Kanu leads and shot his popularity up to high heavens.
His popularity rating was boosted when he was denied bail after orders to do so
by several courts of competent jurisdiction. Kanu was arraigned by the DSS on
November 23, 2015 in an Abuja Magistrate Court for the first time for charges
of “criminal conspiracy, intimidation and membership of an illegal
organisation.” The charges, they said violated “Section 97, 97B and 397” of
Nigeria’s penal code.
On the date
of the case, Kanu’s supporters stormed Abuja in luxury buses on a peaceful
protest for their leader who was arraigned before the Wuse Zone 2 Magistrate
Court with placards amid dancing and singing outside the court premises whilst
hearing proceeded. Protesters wore T-shirts and caps with inscriptions like
“Biafra Now or Never”, “Buhari Release Kanu For Us”, “On Biafra We Stand”.
The
government ignored initial court orders calling for Kanu’s bail before bowing
to the recent one, which eventually led to his release on bail, on April, 28,
2017. But the bail conditions were harsh as the IPOB leader was banned from
public speaking, granting press interviews or being in a group of more than 10
people.
As a
condition of that bail, Kanu was also asked to bring a prominent Igbo leader, a
wealthy resident of Abuja and a senior Nigerian Jewish leader to provide N100m
($260,000; £200,000) each as surety to the court. So, from the government’s
perspective, Kanu is an enemy of the state whose activities should be nipped in
the bud. But for very many others, he is a hero and a prisoner of conscience.
While he was
in prison, many prominent Nigerians including Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti
state, former governor of Abia State and eminent businessman, Dr Orji Uzor
Kalu, former governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, Prof Charles Soludo among
others visited him and further made him a celebrity even while in detention.
Cult figure
among Ndigbo
Among Ndigbo
worldwide, particularly in the South East zone, Kanu has become a small god. In
the social media, pictures of those who are short of worshipping him like a deity
have often appeared in some platforms. His Abia State home has become a Mecca
of some sorts. Going by the figures from Amnesty International, more than 150
Igbo youths were martyred in the struggle for his release.
Many still
wonder why the leader of IPOB has overshadowed his counterpart and founder of
the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra(MASSOB),
Chief Ralph Uwazuruike. Not a few believe that the average Igbo youth sees Kanu
as the new face of the Biafran struggle unlike Uwazuruike who had been around
over the years with allegations of having compromised the spirit of the fight
for liberation. The youth in the South East see him as the true son of Biafra
having remained unbowed despite the intimidation and harassment in the hands of
the state.
Kanu is
worshipped and deified because in the eyes of many, he did what many Igbo
leaders were either too afraid to do or unwilling to do because of their
selfish interests. He dared to be different and spoke out against the powers
that be whose project appears to have been to always put the Igbo at a
disadvantage in the nation’s scheme of things. Many believe that Kanu has
successfully taken up the gauntlet and waged a mind war against the establishment,
hence his popularity among the Igbo masses.
Sit-At-Home
Order
On Tuesday,
May 30 , the entire South East was shut down following the sit-at-home order by
the Kanu’s IPOB, to mark the 50th anniversary of the declaration of the defunct
Republic of Biafra and to honour heroes and heroines of the struggle. Apart
from the East, the directive was partly complied with in Port Harcourt, Asaba
and Bayelsa but ignored in Uyo.
Most
markets, banks and schools in Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo states, including
those in the rural areas, were closed and the roads were totally deserted in
the early hours of the morning. In Enugu, the order was also largely complied
with as schools, banks, markets and other commercial activities were paralysed,
with police helicopters hovering around the state capital. The shutdown of the
states was in spite of the plea by South-East governors and massive police and
security presence, who patrolled streets and carried out air surveillance with
helicopters to ensure that there was no breakdown of law and order.
According to Sun news, Following
the success of the sit-at-home directive, IPOB congratulated Ndigbo worldwide
for showing total compliance with the order. IPOB, in a statement by its Media
and Publicity Secretary, Mr Emma Powerful, said the compliance with the
directive was an indication that Ndigbo all over the world were tired of the
Nigerian federation and ready to leave the country. His words: “Our Supreme
Leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu issued this order of sit-at-home when he was still in
Kuje Prisons, Abuja and it has come to pass. All the people of Biafra both at
home and abroad complied in totality without any compulsion, which has not
happened in the history of the Biafran struggle.”
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