The former President-General of Igbo Think Tank Tank group, known as Aka Ikenga, Goddy Uwazuruike, has said that President Muhammadu Buhari’s continued detention of leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, has transformed the agitator from the status of a nobody to a heroic personality.
In a chat with the media during the weekend, the Igbo intellectual said the celebration of Kanu as a hero and the clamour for his release from Kuje prison was born out of necessity and expediency.
According to him, the call for Kanu’s release and the subsequent hero status he had attracted can be justified by an allusion to an African proverb.
He said “If an individual on his way to work finds a man beating his child on account of disobedience, and the child is still sighted serving the same punishment in the evening, what would the passer-by tell the father? Of course he would wade in and say: ‘this is enough, stop it. It is enough.’
“Who was Nnamdi Kanu before now? He was nobody. But suddenly during this detention, after various court have discharged him, he has become somebody. By government’s action, it has made him an authority.
“Remember some years ago, leader of the Oodua Peoples Congress, Chief Gani Adams, was arrested, just like the late NADECO leader, Chief Abraham Adesanya. But it got a stage that people shouted ‘Leave these people alone.’
“Similarly, we are calling for the release of Kanu, enough is enough. It has nothing to do with the 2019 elections.
“Nnamdi Kanu is not a threat to anybody. You have him in prison for owing a radio station but his detention has not stopped the radio station to stop broadcasting.”
On why the call is being made at this time, he said: “It is never too late to say the truth, even at the point of death.
“Let me put it this way, anyone who keeps silence in the face of oppression and injustice deserves the worse treatment.
“Prof. Soludo, Prof Utomi and the governors have spoken and we are very happy and we call on all Nigerians to join in the call as well. If people are charged for treason because they spoke about injustice and oppression, then they are labeled enemies of the state, then you know what kind of government that is.”
On how to effect the release, he said the Attorney- General of the Federation should advise the President that this treasonable felony trial will do him no good and the charge should be dropped.
“And that is why we advocate the separation of the office of Attorney General from that of the Minister of Justice, the former answers to the people while the latter to the President”, he added.
