By Osasu Oviasuyi
The gross failure of elected political office holders in the South East in uniting to provide a voice to champion the interest of the people of the South East, and to lead the agitation against perceived Igbo political marginalization in Nigeria is what produced an Nnamdi Kanu who is now more of a liability to the Biafra secessionist movement than a promoter.
In other words, the extra abundance of weak governors and other political office holders in the South East is what created a leadership vacuum that a volatile character such as Nnamdi Kanu has risen up to fill.
If there were up to at least five kinds of Governor Rotimi Akeredolu in the South East, or if generally, Igbo politicians were at least half as smart, united and organized as the Yoruba politicians in Nigeria, Nnamdi Kanu would have been tamed and also protected like Sunday Igboho, and the recent Biafra agitations would not have been visited by military response from the Nigerian Government.
Recall how few days after Southern Nigerian Governors met to make a resolution on open grazing and restructuring, the Senate immediately accelerated constitutional review endeavors nationwide. That is what legitimate state actors bring to the table as far as any agitation is concerned. And it is extremely unreasonable to escalate an age-long agitation such as Biafra in the manner Nnamdi Kanu has done without being diplomatic enough to carry politicians along, even if it is done secretly.
Elected officials are the legitimate agents of state and they have the legal cover of the state and security architecture at their disposal to give any agitation a much needed cover from being massacred by the army and they provide leverage to amplify the message in the agitation through official channels.
That is how to lay a good foundation for any revolution. It is also common sense that everyone should have. Even terrorists have been reported in history to use partnership with radical or disguising political figures to keep their terrorist group strong, lasting and difficult to defeat.
Up to the Boko Haram terrorist group in Nigeria, there has been allegations of collaboration of Northern traditional rulers and politicians in the early years of the rise of the deadly Boko Haram group. And recently, a former deputy Governor of the central Bank alleged that a Northern Governor is the commander of Boko Haram. Hence why it has not been easy for the Nigerian army to defeat Boko Haram.
The point is that nothing disruptive, be it good or bad succeeds in the social sphere without a diplomatic approach to bring elected political leaders and traditional rulers on board. Even the eventually failed declaration of Biafra independence by Ojukwu in 1967 was 100% with the backing of the political and traditional structure in the South East (then Eastern region).
Ojukwu was not a random guy agitating for Biafra and ordering young men to go and get killed. He was the Governor of the then Eastern region that entailed even non Igbo tribes. The instruments of the Nigerian state that were at his disposal at the Eastern region was used by him to give the movement some leverage. That is how powerful official state actors can be, even in doing something wrong.
Ojukwu did not even border to give other non Igbo tribes who were in the then Eastern region a right to self determination to decide whether they wanted to be in Biafra or in Nigeria. He carved them into Biafra by force and thrust them into a brutal war that was never theirs in the first place since they were not Igbos who were being killed in the North and for whose safety Ojukwu declared Biafra.
Calabar people, Ijaw people, PortHarcourt people, Delta people and Edo people were not being killed in the North. Only Igbos were. But because most of them were part of the Eastern region that was being governed by Ojukwu, he was able to carve them into his Biafra nation. That is how powerful official state actors can be and how much leverage they can have, even for doing something wrong.
Hence, only a naive, confused, and mentally unstable man like Nnamdi Kanu will lead people on his current suicide mission by failing to first exhaust democratic channels and failing to first bring the political and traditional establishment in the South East on board.
Not knowing this is a proof that Nnamdi Kanu lacks the leadership skills, the intellectual capacity, the emotional intelligence, and the diplomatic competence to lead a successful Biafra agitation.
Those who really want Biafra should better begin to demand for Nnamdi Kanu to either change his ways (if possible) or announce a new and more refined, cool-headed person to lead the Biafra struggle. Else, he will just send thousands of Igbo youths to their early graves in vain.
This arrogance Nnamdi Kanu has displayed in his failure to respect and carry the political and traditional establishment in the South East along in the Biafra struggle has also been extended to Niger Delta people who are not Igbos and thus not part of Biafra.
This Nnamdi Kanu and other of his mentally unstable Biafra agitators have displayed so much arrogance to forget that a land-locked Biafra nation will only thrive and succeed by being respectful and diplomatic with her neighbors, especially the Niger Delta people who will never be part of Biafra.
All over social media, Nnamdi Kanu’s followers keep insulting Niger Delta tribes for refusing to join the Biafra agitation, forgetting that they are sowing a bad seed that will make Biafra fail if it eventually gets independence.
How do you go about insulting and presenting yourself as superior to a people who you are supposed to be begging to join you, knowing fully well that without them your Biafra will be land-locked? Who does that ?
These Niger Delta tribes have not yet made the mistake of becoming minority tribes in your Biafra, yet you are already insulting them and forcefully declaring that their lands and their people are yours, in the same way that Fulani jihadists also claim that the whole of Nigeria is theirs as an estate of their ancestor Uthman Dan Fodio.
With these violent, disrespectful and arrogant rhetorics, Nnamdi Kanu and his brainwashed agitators are expecting that the tribes in Niger Delta will still be willing to jump from frypan to fire – from the threats posed by Fulani terrorists in Nigeria to the prospects of marginalization in an Igbo dominated Biafra. If Nnamdi Kanu was in his right mind, wouldn’t he have known that no tribe will accept to be a minority in an Igbo dominated country?
Those who really love to have Biafra independence better know now that Nnamdi Kanu and his violent, disrespectful and arrogant agitators are not only jeopardizing the chances of realizing Biafra, he is also creating a problem for that future Biafra nation by sowing seeds of distrust and disaffection with Niger Delta tribes whose friendship a Biafra nation would need to thrive.
The Igbos cannot afford to make the generational mistake of creating unnecessary enemies in their struggle for self determination. They have to wake up and face reality by completely erasing the thoughts of having Niger Delta tribes in their Biafra out of their minds.
The reason Niger Delta tribes were in Ojukwu’s Biafra was because they were part of the Eastern region that was created by Nigeria and/or the British colonialists, and of which Ojukwu was the governor at the time.
Before the British, there was nothing like Eastern region. The Niger Delta tribes lived separately from the Igbos without any cultural similarities or ancestral links between them. And for today, no tribe consisting of intelligent people will be willing to go and become minorities in an Igbo dominated Biafra nation.
Even when it comes to referendum, there will only be referendum in the five (5) traditional Igbo states. Referendum will not be held in Niger Delta simply because there are Igbos there. It is like expecting that referendum should also be held in Lagos, Sokoto and Kano simply because there are Igbos there. And any attempt to resist this will portray to the international community and the United Nations that what the Igbos want is no longer a right to self determination but an Uthman Dan Fodio and Fulani kind of expansionist agenda which must be resisted.
You cannot be asking for right to self determination and yet seeking to deprive other non Igbo tribes of their rights to self determination. Niger Delta tribes have not agitated for Biafra, hence there cannot be referendum in Niger Delta for Biafra. If a referendum is to be held in Niger Delta, it will be for a Niger Delta Republic if Niger Delta tribes so wish. But not for a Biafra that they have never agitated for. This is the same way that the only referendum that will be held in Ibadan for example is going to be a referendum for Yoruba Nation or Oduduwa Republic. You cannot go and hold a referendum for Biafra in Yoruba land, or a referendum for Oduduwa Republic in Igbo land, or a referendum for Niger Delta Republic in Yoruba land. Except you are looking for trouble.
To imagine that Nnamdi Kanu did not consider all these factors and realities is a proof that his own concept of Biafra lacks foundation, and he has become a liability to the sincere Biafra struggle.
All Igbos must rise up to stop Nnamdi Kanu before he kills the original Biafra dream.
From insulting Igbo elders, sidelining Igbo political leaders, radicalizing young men and sending them to kill when democratic options have not yet been exhausted, to insulting future Biafra neighbors by carving them into his Biafra map without their consent and expecting a referendum to be held in their lands that are not traditional Igbo lands, he is now the greatest threat to the Biafra struggle.
This is because at this rate, when push gets to shove, Igbos will not even have Niger Delta neighbors to support them, neither will the international community support an expansionist agenda. It will be a worse bloodbath in the South East than what happened in the last civil war when some members of the international community were supporting Biafra and Niger Delta was a part of it.
