Last week a high-powered delegation of notable Igbo elder statesmen led by the 93-year old First Republic parliamentarian and Minister of Aviation, Mbazulike Amaechi, visited President Muhammadu Buhari in Aso Rock, Abuja. The former Governor of Anambra State, Chukwuemeka Ezeife, Bishop Sunday Onuoha of the Methodist Church, former President of Igbo socio-cultural group, Aka Ikenga, Goddy Uwazurike and Tagbo Amaechi were also part of the group under the aegis of Highly Respected Igbo Greats that visited Aso Villa to plead the cause and case of the detained Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.
Mazi Kanu and the Biafran statehood agitation he champions has somewhat become a national problem worthy of intervention from serious elderly quarters. Given the prevailing chaotic situation of ‘neither war nor peace’ in the South-east region the prospect of Biafran nationhood could be said to be neither here nor there.
Amid gun madness, assassinations and arson, Biafra has turned full circle! Our brothers and sisters in Igboland are living dangerously; a perilous life not worth living.
The nonagenarian leader of the delegation had reportedly told the President that the situation in the Southeast was “painful and pathetic” arguing that businesses and education were suffering in the region and pleading for a political solution rather than a military one to Kanu’s case.
He asked President Buhari to release Kanu to him promising that Kanu would “no longer say the things he had been saying.” According to him, he could control Kanu in the event of a presidential intervention “not because I have anything to do with IPOB, but I am highly respected in Igboland today.”
Elder Amaechi concluded by saying that “I don’t want to leave this planet without peace returning to my country. I believe in one big, united Nigeria, a force in Africa. Mr President, I want you to be remembered as a person who saw Nigeria burning, and you quenched the fire”.
President Buhari was quoted to have said: “You’ve made an extremely difficult demand on me as leader of this country. The implication of your request is very serious….In the last six years, since I became President, nobody would say I have confronted or interfered in the work of the Judiciary. God has spared you, and given you a clear head at this age, with a very sharp memory…A lot of people half your age are confused already. But the demand you made is heavy. I will consider it.”
And stressing his policy of non-interference with the Judiciary the embattled President went on: “I said the best thing was to subject him to the system. Let him make his case in court, instead of giving very negative impressions of the country from the outside. I feel it’s even a favour to give him that opportunity”.
A “favour” granting Kanu an opportunity to face justice? Hell no, we disagree! If not facing justice as the rule of law dictated upon his rendition from Kenya was Buhari telling us that Kanu should have been given the Saro-Wiwa treatment or simply killed extra-judicially?
Before the Igbo elders went for the meeting with Mr President the lawyers of Kanu had released a statement decrying the detention conditions of their client inside the Department of State Services (DSS) facility in Abuja. They likened Kanu’s detention condition to psychological torture and attempt at breaking his spirit.
According to lawyers Ejimakor and Ejiofor Mazi Kanu is held incommunicado inside the DSS cell and he is only allowed to see the sunlight one hour on a daily basis. No one had expected Kanu to be detained like a Santa Clause who committed a misdemeanour on a Yuletide parade! But there ought to be applicable standards set in such detentions.
Senior citizen Amaechi in his speech fraught with patriotism and emotion had assured their executive host that in the event of Kanu’s liberation the man from Afaraukwu-Umuahia would no longer be saying what he had been saying all along!
Pray, what was he saying before which upon regaining his freedom he would be ‘forbidden’ to say again? Would Mazi Kanu be a changed man when he walks out of the DSS gulag a free man? Would grandpa Amaechi be able to control him and his armed militant gang? What if he runs away again, jumping bail? Whither the struggle for the Biafran independence?
Of course President Buhari can prevail on Justice Binta Nyako to do the needful by granting Kanu bail come January. But which condition(s) would be attached to the bail? Would Kanu be gagged literally or restricted, like Comrade Sowore, to Abuja? Would he possibly be asked surreptitiously to call for a ‘ceasefire’?
The efforts of the Igbo elders toward brokering a political solution to the Kanu saga is commendable. There is something infinitely beautiful about freedom and we are sure Kanu knows it. His freedom is worth everything and anything! It is only free men that wage rebellion or agitate for a cause.
The South-east region has suffered enough violence and bloodshed that all hands should be on deck to quench the raging ‘fire’. Biafra as a sovereign entity could be obtained non-violently through negotiations and dialogue.
While we recognise that Igbos in their majority believe in the Biafran nationhood agitation the current situation of chaos and creeping anarchy has given rise to calls for a negotiated settlement (including referendum if necessary).
Between Mazi Kanu and the echoes of freedom emanating from Abuja a solution could be in the offing with no feeling of the vanquished or the victorious. Let peace be given a chance in the South-east!
SOC Okenwa
