The Nigeria/Nnamdi Kanu Case: British Columnist, Colin Freeman Writes
One who follows the British born writer and columnist, Colin Freeman, will possibly develop some mild shock over his sheer exposition, you may say, of the the exasperated machinations and intrigued drama that have concealed the IPOB-Nigerian case.
Freeman takes us through the experience so far, revealing his file of investigative journalism. And don’t be suprised, if the IPOB get the favours from his stand point.
“Today, Igbo people live everywhere from Canada and Dubai to China. The original Radio Biafra, “which broadcast propaganda” from a jeep-mounted studio to avoid Nigerian warplanes, fell silent. But eight years ago Kanu restarted it from London, and as the 50th anniversary of the conflict looms, it is once more campaigning for self-actualisation. As Kanu once put it, ‘No amount of intimidation, arrest, torture, deprivation will stop Biafra from coming.’
This time, the campaign is also enjoying its very own ‘Brexit boost’. For if Britain doesn’t want to be part of the European superstate, why should Igbos remain part of a disastrous behemoth like Nigeria, with its 250 different ethnicities, 500 tongues and 170 million people?
After all, five decades on from the war, the Nigerian state has become a byword for inept, corrupt government, with the world’s 10th biggest oil reserves, yet 60 per cent of people living on less than $1 a day.
‘Brexit asked why Britain should remain in a system that does not fit it,’ says Emma Nmezu, a Radio Biafra DJ and supporter of Kanu’s movement Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). ‘Kanu says it is the same with us and Nigeria.’
Until recently, Kanu was politely ignored by the outside world. To many Igbos, he was at best an expat dreamer. Then, after years in which nobody took him seriously, the Nigerian government did just that. During a visit to Nigeria 15 months ago, he was arrested by its feared Department of State Security at a hotel in Lagos.
Ever since, he has languished behind the peeling walls of Kuje Prison, where he is now awaiting trial for ‘treasonable felony’, punishable with life imprisonment. One plank of the case against Kanu, 47, is a recorded speech to the 2015 World Igbo Congress in Los Angeles, in which he allegedly gave a call to (Igbos) to carry arms (to protect themselves from the terror group, Boko Haram).
‘We need guns and we need bullets,’ he declared. ‘We now know that the best way to defend yourself is to be armed, because [Islamist terror group] Boko Haram is everywhere.’ A call Kanu’s lawyers justified by stating that it was just overexcited rhetoric, and that no shiploads of weapons ever crossed the Atlantic. But justified or not, his arrest has turned him from a loudmouth expat into a political prisoner (a leader, one can be re-assured).
In his supporters’ eyes, he is now Peckham’s own Nelson Mandela. Since his arrest, there have been pro-Biafran demonstrations in nearly every country with an Igbo presence, and bigger ones in the Igbo homelands of south-east Nigeria. In the city of Onitsha – the scene of heavy fighting during the war – crowds of 20,000 turned out, holding placards of the saviour from south London alongside the Biafran flag, a red, black and green tricolour emblazoned with a rising yellow sun.
And the blood has been flowing once again. Since the autumn of 2015, at least 150 IPOB Members have died in clashes with security forces at pro-Biafran rallies, according to a report in November by Amnesty International, which accused the Nigeria government of heavy-handed policing and ‘extrajudicial executions’. Hundreds more have been injured and arrested.
Further violence is a near-certainty if Kanu is convicted, a prospect security forces can ill afford while their hands are full with the fight against Boko Haram. Yet the furore over Kanu’s arrest has gone all but unnoticed in Britain, where the 200,000-strong Nigerian community is generally much seen but little heard. In areas like Peckham, though, Nigerians now vie with hipsters for dominance.
Within the community, Igbos also stand out from Nigeria’s other two big ethnic groups, the Yoruba and the Muslim Hausa (the latter is largely absent from London). ‘Igbos are very entrepreneurial, and they also produce a lot of writers and British politicians,’ says Nels Abbey, a British-Nigerian businessman and former columnist on the black weekly newspaper The Voice.
Most British-Nigerian MPs are of Igbo descent, including Helen Grant Britain’s first black female Tory MP, and Chuka Umunna, the former Labour shadow-cabinet minister occasionally tipped as a future PM. Other prominent figures include the rapper Tinie Tempah and the actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, who starred in the film adaptation of Half of a Yellow Sun, novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s account of the Biafran war.
Since the autumn of 2015, at least 150 IPOB members have died in clashes with security forces at pro-Biafran rallies
‘In Britain, these people are just seen as “black” MPs, writers, actors, sportspeople, etc, but they’re not,’ Abbey adds. ‘They’re not even just Nigerian – they’re Igbo. Igbos are also sometimes perceived as a bit snobbish, as if they think they’re capable of anything. But it isn’t snobbery if you can back it up. Nnamdi Kanu is a case in point – a guy living in a house in Peckham who thinks he can be a saviour to a nation. That beautiful audacity is typically Igbo.”
