Where Nnamdi Kanu missed a trick

First of all, a caveat: I am opposed to the balkanisation of Nigeria. I am also opposed to secession by stealth. This is no breaking news to anybody who has been following my writings in the last 22 years. But I do not preach national integration and nation-building because I am such a great patriot. Rather, it is because I have taken the time to study ordinary Nigerians and I do not see any evidence that balkanisation is their priority. It is the agenda of the political and intellectual elite, the powerful opinion leaders who shape public discourse. The majority of Nigerians — Muslims, Christians, northerners, southerners — are more concerned about food, jobs, roads, healthcare and security.  

Yes, we have sharp differences — some obviously irreconcilable. Yes, there are conflicts here and there — you can never rule such out in any multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society. I suppose conflict is human nature. May I further say that my anti-balkanisation stance is also based on the conviction that if you harbour ethnic hate in your mind, it wouldn’t disappear simply because you now have a country to yourself. It will find expression in your new home. That is why we have intra-ethnic, not just inter-ethnic, conflicts. The more a society is atomised, the more the latent differences get magnified. I do not see diversity as a disease — the key to unity is deft socio-political management.

Having said that, however, I do not make light of the misgivings of Nd’Igbo about the Nigerian federation. Their contention is that they have been marginalised in a federation conceived by the colonial masters as a “tripod”: Hausa/Fulani, Igbo and Yoruba. Whereas the Hausa/Fulani — or the core north — and Yoruba have held political power for a considerable time at the highest level, the same cannot be said of Nd’Igbo. They also contend that the principles of quota system and federal character were introduced to marginalise them. Another issue of contention is the number of states and LGAs: they have the least among the “tripod”. These and other issues constitute the sore points.

Since the failed coup of January 1966 and the killing of Igbo people in the north, the question has been: what next? In 1967, Col Chukwuemeka Ojukwu chose the path of secession, declaring the Republic of Biafra, saying that the Igbo were no longer welcome in Nigeria. Biafra didn’t go well. Top Igbo politicians, such as Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, chose the path of politics, but it did not yield the desired fruits. The highest executive position an Igbo has attained is No 2, via Dr Alex Ekwueme (civilian, 1979-1983) and Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe (military, 1985-86). We will never know if Ekwueme would have been elected president in 1987 if the military had not taken over, but he was in good standing.

Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999 offered yet another opportunity for Nd’Igbo to seek political power through the ballot. (Military rule, from 1966 to 1979 and 1983 to 1999, was an all-northern affair; the only southerner to named head of state, Gen Olusegun Obasanjo, did so at the pleasure of the north in 1976). The efforts of Ekwueme, the leading Igbo aspirant, were to no avail. After the 1999 elections, Dr Ralph Uwazuruike floated the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB). Many saw it as a move to force the issue electing an Igbo as president in 2003, although the group’s stated aim was secession. MASSOB had frequent clashes with the police.

An Igbo would most probably have been vice-president in 2007 (following the natural order of sharing positions among the tripod) and would most likely have succeeded President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, but the oil-rich Niger Delta had emerged as a fourth force following their campaign for resource control at the time. Although Nd’Igbo fully embraced and supported President Goodluck Jonathan, especially after he appointed Gen Azubuike Ihejirika as the army chief — the first Igbo to hold the position since 1966 — the fact remained that he was an Ijaw man. The lingering feeling of marginalisation did not fade. Things only got worse after Jonathan lost the 2015 presidential poll.

It was in the countdown to the 2015 elections that I started hearing of Nnamdi Kanu, whose hate-filled speech on Radio Biafra started trending on social media. He announced himself as the leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) and the mission was clear: revive Biafra. The IPOB rallies started in Port Harcourt, Rivers state, in 2015 or 2016, I think. Kanu heightened his acidic rhetoric and kept on gaining followership, becoming — in my opinion — the individual with the most significant political influence in Igboland. As in many societies, the Igbo streets had lost faith in their politicians whom they saw as not representing their interests or fighting for their aspirations.

Between 2015 and 2019, Kanu’s fame and influence — as well as his rhetoric — had risen so high that his followers and some politicians were kissing his feet. He became a man of the people. And this is where I think Kanu missed a trick. At the height of his power in 2019, he could have floated or backed a political party that would have dominated the politics of the south-east the way the Alliance for Democracy (AD) did in the south-west in 1999. It was a golden opportunity for him. He didn’t need to run for any office, by the way, but he could have succeeded in installing the five governors, 15 senators and 43 members of the house of reps from the zone. He was that popular.

What he could have achieved with that, I propose, would be to mainstream the Nd’Igbo agenda. That could have paved the path for a meaningful political engagement. But he obviously did not believe in Nigeria, so this was not an option for him. Still, I have watched the south-west articulate its own agenda and take its place in the politics of Nigeria. From being overtly anti-north in the first and second republics, the Yoruba have become pragmatic. All Yoruba politicians who have been elected president —Bashorun MKO Abiola, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, cultivated the national appeal, unlike Chief Obafemi Awolowo. Politics is art and science combined.

I think Kanu made two major strategic mistakes in his campaign — and my comment today is without prejudice to his trial and conviction for terrorism which I believe will be appealed. His first mistake was antagonising other parts of Nigeria with his rhetoric, thereby hardening existing fault lines. This might have won him more followers in some places, but it provoked hostility elsewhere. His second mistake was visiting or encouraging violence on his own people. In the end, he lost useful sympathy both within and outside his region. Not every Igbo supported was Kanu was doing, but many people had to keep quiet or grumble secretly because of the dire repercussions of going against the grain.

I am of the opinion that Kanu misread the dynamics. In 2015, I had an argument with a senior colleague from Abia state who is now of blessed memory. He said the Yoruba made Nigeria ungovernable after the annulment of June 12 presidential election in 1993 and, as compensation, got the presidency in 1999. He said the Niger Delta bombed the pipelines and got presidency in 2011. The north, he said, made Nigeria ungovernable with Boko Haram terrorism and got the presidency through Buhari in 2015. Therefore, he argued, Igbo would be fooling themselves to think they could get the presidency through politics when it is obvious violence is the language Nigeria understands.

I did not agree with him totally and I respectfully told him so. The June 12 campaign was not violent in the main — it was mainly protests and media war. And it was not a campaign to make a Yoruba president of Nigeria. It was, at least, branded as a campaign for democracy. The Niger Delta militants did not demand presidency or seek secession — they wanted to control the oil resources. And their campaign of violence was targeted at the pipelines, not Niger Delta people. Boko Haram? They want to establish an Islamic caliphate. It is not a campaign for presidency. If they saw Buhari, they would have killed him in an instant. For the eight years that he was in power, they did not stop the killings.

Unleashing violence on the south-east, as IPOB, the Eastern Security Network (ESN) and unknown gunmen did, is to the disadvantage of Nd’Igbo. Declaring sit-at-home on Mondays was pure economic sabotage that injured the entire geo-political zone. You don’t hurt your own people in trying to make your point. You don’t cut your nose to spite your face. While I remain stoutly against balkanisation and secession, I maintain that Kanu could have made a better point if his course of action had been more politically strategic. At the height of glory, he could have mobilised Nd’Igbo and promoted their agenda more decently and effectively. His chosen path has been all but ruinous.

AND FOUR OTHER THINGS…

SAD SOULS

Some Nigerians are sad that those taken captive in Kwara and Kebbi states by bandits have been freed. They are so pained. While I am not trying to minimise their pain, I would like to ask them: if it was their father or daughter that was taken captive, would they be this depressed by the news of their freedom? Politicians argue that government should not negotiate with bandits, but would they be saying this if it were their mothers that are in captivity? This again brings to the fore the core issue with our politics — that the Nigerian people are mere pawns. It is the nature of our politicians and some disgruntled Nigerians who cannot differentiate between politics and human life. Disgracia.

COUP COCKTAIL

Another West African democracy has fallen, with the military suspiciously overthrowing President Umaro Sissoco Embaló of Guinea-Bissau. The coup leader, Gen Horta N’Tam, is Embaló’s loyalist, leading to rumours that it was stage-managed to save his face as his stock had fallen miserably among the voters. That Embaló was allowed to flee abroad after the coup says a lot about the suspicion. It is, however, worrisome that another West African country has been seized by the military, even though Guinea-Bissau and coups are Siamese twins. Bissau-Guineans will once again enjoy the taste of military rule like their counterparts in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. Unfortunate.

RIP JIMMY CLIFF

Before Bob Marley, there was Jimmy “Cliff” Chambers. It is a little-known fact that Cliff was the first Jamaican reggae star to make waves in the UK and the US, paving the way for Marley and the rest. Cliff, who died on Monday at 81, was politically conscious and musically flexible. His 1969 song, Vietnam (one of my all-time favourites), was rated by Bob Dylan as “the best protest song”. Dylan, by the way, won a Nobel for his song-writing, so he knows a thing about lyrics. Cliff first converted from Christianity to Rastafarianism, then to Islam. He later discarded religion altogether. Cliff is the fourth Jamaican reggae oldie to die in 2025, after Cocoa Tea, Max Romeo and Vivian Jones. Farewell.

NO COMMENT

The 2025 edition of the “Police withdraw personnel from VIP escort duties” was kicked off by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu last week, with over 11,000 policemen and women recalled. It has been an annual event for as long as I can remember. In fact, it is usually the first pronouncement of every new inspector general of police. I am hopeful that the 2026 edition will attract more publicity and media coverage. Hon Idris Wase, former deputy speaker of the house of representatives, has expressed dissatisfaction with the order, raising the alarm that it would expose politicians to kidnappers. Kidnapping is for ordinary Nigerians, who do not deserve police protection. Hahahaha.