Is Nnamdi Kanu Now The Main Issue In Nigeria? May 21, 2021 | EASTERN PILOT By Duncan Odey Since the past few months, Nigeria has come f...
Is Nnamdi Kanu Now The Main Issue In Nigeria?
May 21, 2021 | EASTERN PILOT
By Duncan Odey
Since the past few months, Nigeria has come full circle to a lot of things that were assuredly unthinkable a few years ago, counting particularly from Buhari’s ascendency in mid-2015.
Going by conventional wisdoms, there appears to be no other issue in Nigeria of the moment that demonstrates the rapidly changing tide of times than the matter of Nnamdi Kanu, the indomitable leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). Remarkable also is Nnamdi Kanu’s principled stance, coupled with his prophetic warnings on the strange events that are now besetting Nigeria.
First, Nnamdi Kanu was the first to warn Nigeria of Fulanization as far back as late 2015. He was then widely condemned for it, even by some of the eminent persons who have now turned full circle to saying exactly the same thing four years later from 2019. It includes notably Obasanjo, and Danjuma, who even called on Nigerians to arm themselves.
Danjuma even took his petition to the UK government and both he and other ‘converts’ are now sounding more militant than the myriad pronouncements issuing from Nnamdi Kanu that these people had roundly condemned as hate speech and for which Kanu was charged for treason and nearly murdered.
Second, as far back as 2016, Nnamdi Kanu warned about an impending assault on the judiciary, especially the Supreme Court. He called on Nigeria Bar Association to prime itself to resist it. As usual, he was vilified and called all sorts of names, including a false prophet. Yet, barely three years down the road, it happened when Onnoghen was humiliated out of office. It is now so bad that the entire judiciary has been on strike for almost two months and nobody cares.
Third, Nnamdi Kanu warmed (or is it prophesied?) about the terrorist herdsmen inroads into Middle Belt and Southern Nigeria. Again, his warnings were dismissed as ‘hate speech’, only for the ‘prophesy’ to later manifest when the federal government announced its intention to set up exclusive Fulani settlements across Nigeria, otherwise known as RUGA. It was also the later realization of the looming danger that propelled Southwest to form Amotekun.
It got so bad that Miyetti Allah, the civilian wing of Fulani herdsmen terrorists got so emboldened that it resorted to pushing for Fulani vigilantes in the same Southeast which had banned IPOB for organizing a similar thing for Southeast and South-South citizens. But in just few months, all of that changed to the point of Southern Governors banning open grazing. Who made it happen? Your guess is as good as mine.
Fourth, Nnamdi Kanu had warned that the 2019 elections would be rigged to return Buhari to power and he had deployed it as the main justification for ordering a boycott of the election in Southeast and South-South. According to him, it didn’t make sense to cast votes that won’t count in the final reckoning of the results. Sure thing, PDP ‘lost’ as was prophesied.
There is much more of Kanu’s early predictions, warnings (or prophesies, if you will) that are in the public domain and virtually all of them have come to pass. This is as uncanny.
Perhaps, the greatest achievements of Kanu’s interventions are these: His rhetorics helped to galvanize the EndSARS, the Oduduwa agitation, the ban on open grazing by Southern Governors, the founding of Ebubeagu, the new courage being exhibited by Governor Ortom, the widespread support for either restructuring or separation, and now the willingness of Southeast Governors to speak of him and IPOB in respectful terms, even to the point of talking of negotiating with the federal government on the grievances articulated by Nnamdi Kanu and IPOB..
As it now stands, if Nigeria is restructured to the satisfaction of all or partitioned peacefully, Nnamdi Kanu’s name will feature prominently as one of the major characters that made it happen.
Odey writes from Calabar.
No comments