Nnamdi Kanu is certainly capable of doing more damage to the Nigerian system than the MASSOB, OPC, and such other groups, and
should he push things further, he could ignite a crisis worse than Boko Haram.
My gut feeling is that some people in certain places are beginning to realize this and that is why Nnamdi Kanu out of detention appears untouchable; it is the reason he is able to dare the state, and ridicule his bail conditions.
The lesson here is obviously enough, the brazen use of force and intimidation to deal with certain situations could create really bad unintended consequences.
Nnamdi Kanu who probably barely struggled to survive as a black man in Europe, has been turned by the Nigerian Government into a credible apostle of a resurgent Biafran rev olution.
The other day when he held a meeting in Umuahia, over 5,000 persons trooped to his compound. Kanu is a master of symbolism. He is exploiting the Jewish symbol: to signal to the world that Igbos are being persecuted.
He visits symbolic sites of the civil war to prick the injured part of the Igbo consciousness and mobilize the people. His pre-eminence is a comment on the quality of the state and its strategic intelligence system.
If he succeeds with his threats, we should know those to blame. A few days ago, someone on social media further compared him to Jesus Christ and described him as the true saviour. Every revo lutionary in history graduates from ordinariness to being messianic, propelled by optimized endorsement.
Whoever ordered Nnamdi Kanu’s arrest and prosecution did this country a bad turn. Fifty years after the outbreak of the civil war, we now have a man called Nnamdi Kanu. He may well end up as Nigeria’s nemesis. He is the most frightening product of our many years and acts of denial and he may well throw the country into a nightmare worse than Boko Haram, if care is not taken.
He started out as the leader of a group called the Indigenous People of Biafra and as director of Radio Biafra. He and those who bought into his rhetoric of secession and the renewal of the Biafra dream organized protests across the world, and they looked, from afar, like a group of disgruntled Nigerians in diaspora.
In the foreign lands where most of the members lived, they looked like persons over-enjoying the freedom of speech from a safe distance. They didn’t appear to have the force of MASSOB, which is locally based and seemingly more malleable. The renewed strug gle for Biafra that Kanu and his crowd talked about could have been nothing more than an internet and television revolution.
But everything went wrong the moment Nnamdi Kanu chose to visit home and he was arrest ed, detained and taken through a court trial. Whoever ordered Nnamdi Kanu’s arrest and prosecution did this country a bad turn. Kanu is a character that could have been better ignored.
His trial and travails have turned him into a hero and a living martyr among Igbos. And the young man so far, understands the game. Since he was released on bail, he has been taunting the Nigerian state and govern ment. Daily, he dares those who granted him bail and he laughs at the conditions they gave him arrest him now and see chaos. He associates with more than 10 persons.
He moves about Igboland freely, like a spirit. He addresses rallies and grants interviews. He has been busy issuing statements. On May 30, he ordered a shut-down of the entire South Eastern region and that order was obeyed not only in the South East but also in some parts of the South-South.
