For more than two years, from the comfort of exile, Mr Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, rattled the Nigerian government. Whether it was pointedly aimed potshots or carefully coordinated attacks on public facilities, each time Mr. Nnamdi Kanu yawned, the Nigerian government felt itself hurtling down a yawning gulf.
Given that he had escaped from the country while standing trial, Mr. Kanu`s status as a fugitive from justice bent on exposing the many atrocities of the government was a tremendously bitter pill for the government to swallow.
It was the misgivings of the Nigerian government over the size of the thorn Nnamdi Kanu had become that dragged the social media platform Twitter into the fray. When Twitter censored Mr. Muhammadu Buhari for comments it deemed contrary to its policy, the president accused Twitter of double standards for condoning far more incendiary statements from Mr. Nnamdi Kanu, and subsequently suspended its operations in the country.
Then Mr. Nnamdi Kanu was arrested in Kenya with no little glee of triumph and brought back to Nigeria to continue his trial. The subtlety and smoothness of the operation caught even his staunchest supporters cold.
With their principal back in custody and staring down the depressing barrel of Nigeria`s ponderous judicial process, the IPOB was initially too stunned to react. It has since rallied around and appointed someone to temporarily take Mr. Kanu`s place. However, it has proved forbiddingly tough to replace the aggression of the man who holds the citizenship of both Nigeria and Britain.
Forced to lick its wounds, it appears the IPOB is determined to take out its frustrations on someone, anyone. As usual, the softest targets have been chosen and under the bootheels of IPOB`s mounting cruelty, the long-suffering people of the south-east groan.
It is not just the pointless sit-at-home orders that cripple the businesses of men and women who must trade to feed their hungry children every day, especially on the first working day of the week – it is the needless deaths of innocent people; it is the folly that fuels the razing of public buildings including police stations and INEC offices; it is the pervasive insecurity that reminds older Igbos of the nightmarish uncertainty of the Nigerian Civil War.
The mounting brutality and cruelty of the IPOB in the southeast raises poignant questions about the group and its aims in the long run. Is it by burying its poisonous fangs in the necks of its own people that it hopes to draw the blood that will be used to appease the angry gods of the south-east? Is it by drawing its lash of scorpions against its own people that it hopes to whip dramatically malfunctioning and diametrically opposed Nigerian interests into shape? Is it by crippling the businesses of its own people that it hopes to force a deaf Nigerian government to dialogue?
As the Nigerian Civil War screeched to noisy halt in January 1970, the Igbos were left with practically nothing but their entrepreneurial spirit. The Nigerian government had been devilishly deliberate in its calculations. Properties belonging to the Igbos were taken over in Port Harcourt under the auspices of one of the most obnoxious laws ever made in Nigeria. Money belonging to the Igbos in banks was confiscated. Yet, it was from those ashes, thickened by malice, that the Igbo phoenix was to rise. It remains an extraordinary story albeit one that stands in danger of being corrupted by the overzealousness of the IPOB.
Before they continue to slaughter the innocent and burn down buildings in the south-east, the IPOB`s army of do-nothing thugs and urchins must open the books of history and read. If they can. If they do, they will find that the Igbos did not claw their way out of the doldrums, debris and despond of the Nigerian Civil War by recklessness and indiscretion. If they do, they will discover that the enterprising Igbo spirit which underpins the remarkable strides Igbos have made in entrepreneurship has always abhorred any Kafkaesque approach. They will discover that the harum- scarum approach to issues that they so strongly favour is starkly alien to the prudent Igbo spirit.
Where was the IPOB intelligence when their leader was so easily picked up in Kenya? What was he doing in Kenya in the first place, away from the safety of the UK? Does an Igbo adage not adjure that a man surrounded by enemies should do his best to guard his life?
If the IPOB thinks that by turning the southeast into a theatre of war and a bath of blood, it will take a step closer to its goals, it is sadly mistaken. The iron fist it is crashing into the south-east will only succeed in alienating the people it is supposedly working to emancipate from the suffocating shackles of the Nigerian government.
Kene Obiezu,
Abuja
