In videos which have since gone viral, Nnamdi Kanu, the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) appears to have lost it all in court on 10th February 2025, cutting loose a volley of verbal abuse at the judge and prosecution as his trial resumed.
Kanu’s grouse revolved on his insistence that the court could no longer preside over his matter having recused itself from same. All efforts to placate Kanu failed as he refused to back down, repeating over and over again that he had lost confidence in the court.
Kanu’s current travail may have started in 2021 when the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari joined forces with the Kenyan government, arrested Kanu and bundled him back to Nigeria to resume his trial on charges bordering on terrorism.
In the heat of his trial, Nnamdi Kanu had fled the country in 2017 setting up shop in the UK from where his withering verbal and epistolary missiles remained a source of great consternation and irritation to the Nigerian government. Kanu’s rearrest in 2021 was somewhat of a victory for the Nigerian government.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has since succeeded Muhammadu Buhari as president of the country and has shown signs that he is willing to jettison the ruinous path toed by his predecessor. Yet, for all his overtures for the peace and unity of the country, and for Nigerians from every region to find and feel a sense of inclusion in the Nigerian project, the Nnamdi Kanu situation remains and is turning uglier by the day.
The Nigerian civil war may have ended in 1970, but the divisions forced by the war have remained just as potent more than 50 years later. It is not just that the Igbo of the Southeast who also maintain a presence across Nigeria’s 36 states with a considerable diaspora presence around the world feel like strangers to the Nigerian project, Nigeria’s from other regions struggle to conceal their distaste at the sight of the Igbo on Nigeria’s table. Former president Muhammadu Buhari was especially representative of this view.
With the Igbo having such a torrid time at the national level, re-arresting and returning Nnamdi Kanu to his trial at the Federal High Court has upturned the fragile peace of the southeast region.
For more than three years now, residents of the region continue to sit at home on Mondays as different groups have taken to restricting movement to flex their muscles and in response to the continued detention of Nnamdi Kanu.
There have been calls for Nnamdi Kanu’s release from his kinsmen in the Southeast region and beyond. There have also been calls for a political solution for what has become a problem of profound proportions. Experience from around the world shows conclusively that problems like secessionist agitation have never been solved save by political and inclusive solutions.
The federal government may have proscribed IPOB. The government may have its leader in detention and on trial. But the more pressing question the government must engage is whether these measures it has taken are closing in on solving the problems in the Southeast or actually worsening them.
Truthfully answering these pressing questions hold the key not just to Nigeria’s immediate security needs but its long-term interests and strategic needs.
Ike Willie-Nwobu,
Ikewilly9@gmail.com
