There is always usually just a thin line between freedom-fighting and terrorism. And many times in the affairs of men, especially in the making of nations, one mans terrorist is so often another mans freedom fighter.
For many years now, the Indigenous People of Biafra under the leadership of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu who sits still in the custody of the Department of State Services in Abuja while his trial proceeds forcefully before the Federal High Court in Abuja has been asking that the Igbos of Southeast Nigeria be allowed to determine the question of whether or not they want to remain part of Nigeria.
The IPOB`s agitations which brutally hark back to the scars left by the Nigerian Civil War of 1967-1970 echo the commonly held belief among many Igbos today that Nigeria is structured in such a way to shut them out. This belief is especially vaunted by the fact that since a historic return to democracy in 1999 snapped into two many years of brutal military dictatorships, no Igbo man has been President or Vice President of the country. In this time, the Hausas and Yorubas who form the core of two of the major ethnic groups in Nigeria has continued to swap those positions among themselves like soiled baby diapers. To the Igbos, it is nothing short of sacrilegious that again they are about to be overlooked in 2023 in spite of the fact that no one is yet to show that they do not have what it takes.
This exclusionary tendencies, stoked by the incendiary rhetorics of President Muhammadu Buhari since he assumed office in 2015 have served as fuel for the IPOBs ire. In its blind fury, the group has gone on to turn Nigerias Southeast region turtle, brutally hacking off its own nose to spite its face.
Random abductions have been followed by random killings. Public buildings have been razed to the ground as a region with an inherent instinct to flinch in the face of violence after the atrocities of the Civil War now sits on the edge of a knife.
In 2017, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu who was undergoing trial at the Federal High Court in Abuja for charges bordering on terrorism fled the country after the Nigerian army laid siege to his country home in Abia State and pounded same with bullets and bombs. Once ensconced in the safety of the UK where he is a citizen, his brutal broadsides began to give the current administration some of its most painful blisters till date. In 2017, the IPOB was declared a terrorist organization. In 2021 when Mazi Nnamdi Kanu did not know better than to travel to Kenya, a country where President Uhuru Kenyatta does not even bother to veil his iron fist, he was swiftly arrested and bundled back to Nigeria.
The IPOB has since raised a ruckus with the sit-at-home orders especially catching the Southeast in a suffocating stranglehold and leaving a people whose defiant entrepreneurial spirit saw them shake off the economic soot of the Nigerian Civil War groaning.
Sometime last year, Igbo leaders led by Mr. Mbazulike Amaechi a first republic parliamentarian visited President Muhammadu Buhari in company of other Igbo elders and asked him to release Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. After saying he would give the request due consideration, Mr. Buhari later stated that he would allow the law take its course.
During a recent visit to Ebonyi State, when the request was again played by him, President Muhammadu Buhari was unequivocal in reiterating his earlier position that the law would be allowed to take its course as far as Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was concerned.
Now, it is not surprising that someone accused of such heinous crimes against the country has been made to face the law.
However, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu`s trial and the killing field the Southeast has suddenly become under the iron fist of the IPOB cannot be viewed in isolation. Although their tactics and theatrics rankle, there is no doubt that deep in the the vituperations of the IPOB lies the ventilation of an ancient grievance. There is some method in the madness that is gradually turning the Southeast into a madhouse. It is why the Federal Government must tread carefully. It is folly to draw the sledgehammer every time the fly waltz by simply because the sledgehammer is within reach.
It is not about deploying soldiers to the Southeast, whipping up incendiary rhetoric or adopting a brazenly belligerent posture. All these are easy but they are not be entirely wise. A people that have always felt sidelined in the Nigerian project are bound to have some sympathy for a group, any group, that is agitating for them no matter how many times they balk at the antics of that group. In the case of the Igbos and the IPOB, the sympathy has been stoked by the perception that the Federal Government has dealt the Southeast a different hand in the way it has treated the IPOB.
For example, the proscription of the IPOB as a terrorist group was lightning quick even when the Federal Government showed reluctance as bandits and Fulani herdsmen ripped up communities around the country.
The cautionary tale from 2009 when the extrajudicial killing of Muhammed Yusuf the then Boko Haram leader served as the drop of water that caused the cistern to overflow for Boko Haram holds lessons for Nigeria. But will it learn?
Will a government led by people whose bias and bigotry appear cast in stone be chastised enough to attend history`s chastening classes? We will see.
Kene Obiezu,
keneobiezu@gmail.com
