Kanu, Peter Obi, Gumi and the astonishing bizarreness of Nigeria

Finally, we have some respite from the dreadful stream of Nnamdi Kanu’s courtroom tirades that we were being served recently after his verdict that even the least knowledgeable person could see coming from a mile off. Anyone who had listened to Mr Kanu’s broadcasts ordering his followers to murder and “behead” innocent Nigerian civilians and […]

Finally, we have some respite from the dreadful stream of Nnamdi Kanu’s courtroom tirades that we were being served recently after his verdict that even the least knowledgeable person could see coming from a mile off.

Anyone who had listened to Mr Kanu’s broadcasts ordering his followers to murder and “behead” innocent Nigerian civilians and security personnel, to burn down shops and police stations, and to unleash all sorts of mayhem on Nigerians (or Biafrans if you like), which were carried out by his loyalists, would know that those were acts of terrorism. Or at the very least, they were inciting imminent lawless actions, most of which resulted in loss of life.

Kanu and his IPOB, which was first proscribed by the South East Governors Forum in 2017, before the federal government slapped a terrorist organisation tag on it, had so petrified the region he claimed to be fighting to liberate that even the usually vocal Igbo intelligentsia and politicians held their tongues. Of course, some spoke in his support and continue to do so, beating up the populist drum, even if a good number of them can’t travel to their villages for fear of what Kanu’s militia, or the Eastern Security Network (ESN), had done to the region and might do to them.

The violence the ESN had unleashed, including the rigorously enforced “Monday sit-at-home order,” had crippled the economy of the region, deprived daily wage earners of their means of livelihood, infringed upon their rights, and most unfortunately resulted in the brutal killings of numerous Nigerians, including prominent Igbos like Dr Chike Akunyili. Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, a prominent person from the region, put the number of people killed by the IPOB/ESN at 30,000 Igbos. A more conservative figure published by SBM Intelligence claims at least 700 people have been killed for violating the “sit-at-home” order alone in the last five years, while Amnesty reports that IPOB/ESN killed 1,844 people between January 2021 and June 2023. All in the name of agitating for Biafra, an idea that even though forfeited by its chief proponent, Odimegwu Ojukwu, has remained dear to the Igbo populace of the country who feel aggrieved that Nigeria is not really working for them.

The Igbos, of course, have the right to be affronted, as do many tribes and people in Nigeria. We all can claim marginalisation and neglect in equal measures. I have my personal stories as evidence, but this is not about me. And what we have seen with the Kanu conviction and the reactions to it, especially from his Igbo supporters, is that he cannot be considered a terrorist because he is advocating for self-determination.

The portrayal of Kanu by some of his supporters as an innocent agitator who never killed anyone is misleading. Yes, Kanu did not physically kill anyone. Well, neither did Hitler nor Saddam Hussein. Yet one is vilified in history and escaped justice by killing himself and ordering his body destroyed, while the other was hanged for ordering the torture and killing of people. Kanu might not have clamped his hands around one person’s throat, but he ordered the killings of hundreds of people, most of them his fellow Igbos he labelled “saboteurs.”

While to his supporters, calling him a terrorist insults their intelligence by painting him and Shekau with the same brush, in reality, both have a lot in common—blatant disregard for authority, fanatical belief in their causes, asinine eccentricities bordering on insanity, and egos the size of Zuma rock. They demanded absolute obedience and God-like obeisance from their followers at the expense of violence and played on the deep-rooted sentiments of their followers. But most crucially, they believe in using violence for self-determination. If we strip down all the fancy terminologies and posturing, the bloodthirsty Boko Haram is also agitating for self-determination; they just have never been as articulate in English about their cause as Kanu was.

For Kanu’s sympathisers, Biafra is a cause worth killing for, as much as the idea of a “sharia state” is for Boko Haram. The idea of Biafra is as intoxicating to some Kanu loyalists as the concept of Sharia, as crudely applied as we have seen in Nigeria, is to some Northerners. While Boko Haram might scream Allahu Akbar, for the IPOB and its sympathisers, it is Biafra! For these loyalists, no crime committed in the name of achieving these objectives is a crime.

But as it is in everything, we are always playing “my-pain-is-greater-than-yours” and have not advanced to “our-monsters-are-not-monsters-but-yours-are” in ways that defy logic. For some reason, Peter Obi, the Labour Party presidential candidate in the last elections, decided to torpedo his political career by sticking his neck out to boldly claim that Nigeria should never have arrested Kanu in the first place.

In all the years Kanu and his men unleashed terror on the South East, prevented the people from pursuing their legitimate business, destroyed towns and villages, maimed and killed, Peter Obi did not see it fit to call him to order, attempt to negotiate with him, as he is now asking the federal government to do. Mr Obi, who always has an opinion about anything and everything in Nigeria, including terrorist attacks in other parts of the country or roforofo fights on airlines, never cared to address or visit the victims of the terror in his political base and did not care to address them in his latest statement. He chose to ignore their grief or cry for justice, argued against the same justice system he had praised as objective when it favoured his political ambitions to be governor, but not when it found his kinsman guilty of a crime that was as obvious as the sun in the sky.

What Peter Obi has done is to willfully commit the same crime his supporters have accused others of committing, of having sympathies for terrorists from their regions while using the “insecurity” card elsewhere to score populist goals. At least none of the others openly declared support for them in an emotion-laden statement that was short of reasoning and political tact. By this posturing, he might have won the loyalty of some core Kanu loyalists, most of whom had decided not to participate in the democratic process because they do not consider themselves Nigerians, but he certainly has lost the support of the Nigerian victims of this senseless violence in his region, and any chances he might have had of winning over those outside the region. For the brightest political prospect from the region, Mr Obi has done his region and his supporters a great disservice. If that is not obvious now, it will be in 2027.

These same labels have been rightly tacked on Dr Ahmed Gumi, who has styled himself as a mouthpiece for the bandits abducting girls in the North West, killing hundreds and displacing thousands of others. I had addressed Gumi’s dangerous propensity in my September 16, 2021 column, Gumi and the Sin Eater Syndrome, but with his increased persistence on the subject and his professed willingness to advocate for Kanu’s pardon if he denounces violence, it is important to point out two things. First, he had not asked the bandits he had been advocating for to denounce violence before holding brief for them. And in both cases, he had not said anything about justice or compensation for the victims of these crimes. He claimed that, as a doctor in an emergency, his priority is to stop haemorrhage, not treat the cause. I would be wary of a doctor who has the opportunity to do both but chooses to do just one. When treating cancer, you don’t pamper the tumour and ignore the patient’s pain.

While these ludicrous advocacies for criminals at the expense of their victims are going on, the FG announced its “rescue” of school children and churchgoers who have no business being kidnapped in the first place. The proclamations were, however, very loudly silent about the abductors—no arrests, no KIA reports. So, to fill in the gap, the criminals themselves decided to record their own video announcing that they willfully surrendered the victims because of “certain interventions.” Usually, this would mean some ransom payment or the granting of favours. Neither the terrorists nor the government are making that clear, but what cannot be denied is that they are still operating from a position of strength and are, in effect, facing no consequences for their egregious crimes. The other thing that is clear is that victim “rescue” will become a government priority when it is politically expedient.

The sad conclusion is that neither the government nor the people of Nigeria are ready to deal with the challenges this country faces. Except the victims. But for the others, we are still content playing politics and tribal superheroes when it is convenient, but no one who should care really cares for the victims.