Dear Nnamdi Kanu,
We have never met. I only know you by reputation and I have had cause in the last year to write on your activities within the public arena and offer my own views about you, your persona, and your interventions in the Nigerian debate. I sincerely hope you would get to read this letter wherever you may be, that is assuming you are still alive.
Leader of Biafra, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu
Your father’s house was recently invaded by the Nigerian military (surprised you don’t have a house of your own!). We were later told that you simply disappeared into thin air, along with your parents. The murderous Operation Python Dance II that was unleashed on Igboland by the Federal Government of Nigeria has since become a subject of national interest. Many people have proclaimed that you have been killed, abducted and that many members of your family and movement – the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) have been wasted. Some people said you were called The Lion, but when trouble came, you were the first to run away from the zoo.
You had boasted that you will deal with any invading force from Abuja. You also said it would be “Biafra or Death”. But when death came calling in the shape of Operation Python Dance II, your enemies insisted that you should have waited. Don’t mind them, oh. I have defended you in another piece where I argued that it is probably better to run away so you can live to fight another day. Of course, it is not every revolutionary that runs away.
Che Guevara died in the struggle, and Martin Luther King, Patrice Lumumba, and so on. Nelson Mandela was jailed for life, but he lived to tell the story. In your case, the way the Nigerian state has been carrying on, it is clear they don’t want you to tell any more stories. You have been charged for treason. You have now been labeled a terrorist. Your organization has been proscribed, and labeled an enemy of the Nigerian state.
A week after soldiers stormed your state, neighbourhood and home, the Nigerian Air Force began to drop its men from helicopters all over Igboland. They call it show of force.
I figure the greater part of that, is to tell you and your men that wherever you are, the Nigerian state is resolved to chase you down. In the event that you are ashore, they will snatch you. In the event that you stow away in the skies, the Air Force will cut you down. What's more, in the event that you cover up in the oceans, the Nigerian Navy and the Amphibious Brigade of the Nigeria Army will angle you out.
Authoritatively, we have been informed that you and IPOB are more terrible than vicious herders and the Boko Haram who have slaughtered a huge number of Nigerians in the most recent year alone. The Boko Haram has been proclaimed the fourth most savage gathering on the planet, however the Nigerian government demands that you represent a more prominent danger. Truth be told, an administration representative seemed as though there is a mystery design set up to give herders and the Boko Haram national honours.
There is most likely something that the Nigerian government and state performing artists realize that we don't have the foggiest idea. You were managing the charge of injustice, now there is the extra claim of fear mongering.
Absolutely never beguile yourself that on the off chance that you get captured again, you'd be discharged, with the exception of maybe you change your character and claim that you are currently a herder or an individual from the Boko Haram. There might be many individuals who have Nicodemus access to you who might instruct you to come and go up against the Nigerian state. That is the way Nigerians sweet-tongue individuals to their demise. I am certain that at this point, from your concealing spot, you would have learnt some lessons.The Nigerian state might be against you, yet the general population you truly need to fear are similar individuals you claim to lead, that is similar individuals who used to call you savior and who tailed you about, stooping before you and kissing the ground on which you strolled. Of what utilize is a change-specialist without submitted devotees? Of what utilize is an insurgency without the general population's up front investment? Of what utilize is a belief system without infantrymen? The minute the Federal Government initiated Operation Python II, the greater part of the general population who used to help you have gone totally quiet. The Biafra Secret Service is no place to be seen. The Biafra National Guard discarded its uniform.
Some of those young men who used to wave the Biafran banner and wear the Biafran top have discarded them as well. Maybe a couple people are as yet issuing proclamations for IPOB, yet even those announcements seem like they were issued from business focuses. Your own family have called you a dictator and a pioneer. Huge numbers of them have composed online networking pieces prompting the Federal Government to manage you, since you don't tune in to exhortation. They even say you are not a genuine progressive but rather a gold-digger.In all way of ways, the Governors of the five Igbo states are utilizing you to play legislative issues.
They have proclaimed IPOB an illicit association. They are straightforwardly manhandling you. All the enormous men in Igbo arrive are as calm as the dead ocean. Igbo conventional rulers have declined to help your dad who is their associate. Some of them have in certainty asked the Abia state Governor to pull back his declaration and staff of office and name someone else in his place. Indeed, even the huge men who marked your safeguard archives have declined to shield you.
You used to brag about global help for the Biafran cause. It has been said that the administration now knows some "treasury thieves" and worldwide gatherings who are subsidizing you and that IPOB accounts have been followed to a few nations, especially France. The French and the Turkish instantly removed themselves from you. Be that as it may, the European Union and the United States talked pleasantly. America says IPOB is not a fear based oppressor association and America will know.
But the Nigerian government that may not know half of what America knows is demanding that it is currently a wrongdoing for anyone, even as youthful as five years of age to relate to Biafra, paying little mind to the Constitutional ideal to the right to speak freely and affiliation and the privilege to self-assurance revered in the UN Charter. In reality, it would show up as though the Nigerian Government has possessed the capacity to break the spine of your development, in any event for the time being, and unquestionably, the way things are, the November 18 race in Anambra state will occur – with or without you.
In the event that anyone expected that there would be a monstrous dissent in the South East finished the treatment that has been dispensed to you, that has not exactly happened. Every one of the business sectors in the South East are open; Igbo dealers crosswise over Nigeria have proceeded onward with their organizations. Life is so typical in the South East, the Nigerian military is moving and beating its chest.Northern and South Eastern Governors are holding gatherings and praising each other. You turned 50 yesterday, aside from a couple of messages via web-based networking media, wherever was tranquil in the South-East. On the off chance that this had been a month prior, the group that would have assembled at your doorstep would have extended from Isiama Afara to Afikpo, and the cakes you would have gotten would have been uncountable.
Rochas Okorocha as of late got 27 birthday cakes, displayed by 27 ladies, speaking to a similar number of neighborhood governments in Imo State, you most likely would have gotten a cake from each nearby government in the whole South East!Since your vanishing there has additionally been little discuss self-assurance or Biafra among Igbos. The sound of the account is bit by bit evolving. There is more speak nowadays about Igbo underestimation, and the need to delegate Igbos into workplaces. One unmistakable Northerner from Kaduna has since gone to Chatham House in the UK to say Igbos ought not whine in regards to minimization when they didn't vote in favor of President Buhari in 2015, and that it is absurd for any Nigerian to hope to harvest where he or she didn't sow. Nnamdi, you'd be shocked that arrangement looking for Igbos will assemble your kin, including your supporters, to vote hugely for similar individuals who are as of now dogging you, in 2019.
You can make sure this will happen. Truth be told a few people are as of now gloating that the best way to have tranquility in Nigeria is to influence an Igbo to man President or Vice President in 2019. While you were yelling "Biafra or demise", a few people were looking at the business and political side of things. Each proposed upheaval regularly keeps running into its own contradictions.But don't stress. It might be stylish now to condemn Nnamdi Kanu however the knowledge of the swarm is not generally the best guide. I earnestly trust that you are alive, and that you'd not wind up as an Abogunrin. Few out of every odd man has the chance to witness what life would resemble after his own memorial service. Foul play is one of those unpleasant elements of the change procedure. The miscreants of the reason would assert they want to survive. The casket producer supplicates intensely for business however he could never wish that his own particular relatives should bite the dust. Be that as it may, take heart, trust is not lost. The fire that you have lit will keep on burning. Your battle talks specifically to the subject of the national inquiry. You have reminded one and all that Nigeria remains a harried nation and that there are numerous uncertain issues. Each exertion has been made to execute your voice, and your development, however the thoughts that you have constrained out of the cabinet will keep on resonate.
the uplifting news likewise is that there are Nigerians in diaspora who have taken up the battle. They went to exhibit at the 72nd United Nations General Assembly in New York and in the city of London. Your companions, FFK and Ayo Fayose are as yet remaining by you. There are numerous others out there who additionally don't concur that you are a psychological militant, regardless of the possibility that they don't concur with your strategies and talk. You have likewise uncovered the affectation of the Igbo world class. You have uncovered the franticness of the decision class. Try not to give your head a chance to swell, however. On the off chance that I should disclose to you reality, you over-acted. An excess of acting dey ruin silver screen. You gave careful consideration to service. You were fixated on your own heroism.
As you read this piece and ponder your life at 50, let me help you to remember the accompanying explanation which you made on August 27, 2017:"Where we are is Biafra arrive. Aba is the otherworldly capital of Biafra arrive. We began in Aba in 2015 at CKC. That day, paradise confirmed our turn that IPOB will reestablish Biafra and that is the thing that we have come to do. We kicked the bucket in Aba at National High School. They shot and slaughtered us in different places in Biafra arrive where they were dissenting for my discharge. As our kin rest in the grave, we'll never rest until the point when Biafra is reestablished. I couldn't care less what they say in Abuja. I don't care the slightest bit what they say in Lagos. I'm a Biafran and we will disintegrate the zoo. A few blockheads who are not taught said that they'll capture me, and I request that they come, I'm in Biafra.
In the event that any of them leaves Biafra arrive alive, realize this is not IPOB. Reveal to them what I said. Disclose to Buhari that I am in Aba and any individual who comes to capture Nnamdi Kanu in Biafra land will kick the bucket here. I'll never go on oust I guarantee you. A few people discuss rebuilding, would we say we are doing the rebuilding of Nigeria now? It is safe to say that we are doing monetary Federalism? Is it true that we are doing devolution? What we need is Biafra! Disregard all the garbage they expound on us. We are not backing off and no man conceived of a lady can stop us… "Words on marble, Mazi Kanu, these are solid words on marble… Whatever happens, the battle of the python and the lion is a vital turning point for Nigeria.By Reuben Abati
