It is a right that has been exercised successfully
over and over again in world history and it has led to the creation of
new nations which were carved out of older ones. The denial of that
right and the suppression and persecution of those who attempt to
exercise it leads to nothing but defiance, dissent and resistance and,
if not properly managed, it eventually spills over into war and carnage.
I am not a Biafran and neither am I Igbo. I do however believe that it is the inalienable right of any human being or ethnic nationality
to aspire to be free and to be able to determine their own destiny. The
right of self-determination is enshrined in international law and it is
guaranteed by every moral stricture known to man.
This has been the primary cause of most of history’s most brutal
civil wars, including the American, Russian, French, English, Indian,
Sri Lankan, Sudanese, Nigerian, Angolan, Congolese, Zimbabwean,
Yugoslavian, Ukrainian, Nicaraguan, Cuban, Irish, Syrian, Libyan,
Indonesian, Korean, Vietnamese, Spanish, Iraqi, Italian, Lebanese ones
and countless others. I do not believe in violent change and neither do I
believe in war, revolution, terror or the use of arms in the pursuance
of even the most noble causes.
I do however believe in the power of ideas and the right of any man,
woman or people to yearn to be free from bondage and to peacefully and
freely express that yearning. It is in this context that I situate my
belief in and support for those that view the Nigerian Federation as an
oppressive entity which has effectively enslaved its people in an
attempt to create what is essentially an artificial and unworkable state.
Those that believe in Nigeria have every right to continue to do so
and to voice their resolve to keep Nigeria one. What they do not have
the right to do is to refuse to offer the same degree
of freedom of expression to those that do not believe in a united
Nigeria and who instead believe in the peaceful dissolution of our
nation to speak their minds and voice their views. What is good for the
goose is surely good for the gander. You cannot grant one side of the
divide freedom of expression whilst you deny it to the other.
This is all the more so because freedom of expression is the
lifeblood of any democracy. It must be accorded in equal measure to
those that believe in Nigeria and to those that do not. It is in this
light that we must consider the plight of Mr. Nnamdi Kanu, the director
of Radio Biafra and the man that has been described by the Igbo World Assembly as ”Buhari’s first political prisoner”.
We may not like his style, we may not like his radio station, we may
not share his views or approve of his methods but one thing that we
cannot take from Mr. Kanu is his right to hold such views and to express
them in a peaceful and lawful manner no matter how distasteful those
views may be to some. To deny him this most basic human right is not
only an act of intellectual terrorism but it is also the most grave and
barbaric manifestation of what is essentially an evolving police state where different or contrary views cannot be accommodated by those in power.
When Mr. Alex Salmon and his Scottish Nationalist Party began the
agitation for the dissolution of the United Kingdom and for the
establishment of Scottish independence many years ago they were not
charged to court, locked up indefinitely or murdered by the British
authorities but instead they were eventually given the opportunity to
participate in a referendum and test their ideas. The same thing
happened in the Catalan region of Spain where the agitation for the
establishment of a new nation is compelling and very popular.
The same thing happened a number of years ago in the Quebec region of
Canada. It also happened in a region called East Timor which opted to
leave Indonesia and in Singapore
which opted to leave Malaysia. The same process was adopted when
Georgia, the Ukraine and all the other former Soviet states opted to
leave Russia and when the Czech Republic opted to break off from
Slovakia. The utility and
importance of conducting a referendum on such matters in order to
determine the true will of the people and to honor the findings of that
referendum cannot be underestimated and it remains the only path for
peace.
Sadly President Buhari who, like most in his generation, are still
stuck in the mindset of a civil war general, has refused to learn from
this. The biggest mistake and miscalculation of his administration so
far is not the ruthless implementation of its patently and monstrously
unapologetic northern and Islamic agenda but rather its absurd resolve
to lock up Mr. Kanu indefinitely and to effectively throw the key away
simply because he dared to call for the establishment of Biafra.
As far as I am aware Mr. Kanu has not used or advocated the use of
violence whilst expressing himself and neither have any of his
supporters. One therefore wonders what has panicked the Federal
Government to such a point that they not only have to lock him up but
that they also have to violate the law of the land by not allowing him
to see his lawyer and by not presenting him before a court of law and
charging him within the constitutionally-prescribed three days.
State-sponsored violence and intimidation, the violation of human
rights, illegal incarceration, the murder of innocents and the vicious
suppression of legitimate ideas leads to nothing but hardened hearts,
greater defiance and the spread of anger and dissent. The principle is
simple and clear: the more you fan the flame of tyranny and repression
the more the passion and fire of liberty spreads.
It follows that the biggest favor that President Buhari’s security
agencies could have done for the Biafran cause was to lock up Mr. Kanu
and thereby transform him from being a little-known secessionist into
the living symbol of the Biafran
struggle, a respected freedom fighter, a champion of the Igbo people and
an internationally-acclaimed political prisoner.
It is no wonder that leading politicians from all over the world,
including the former Home Secretary and former Leader of the Labor Party
in the United Kingdom, Mrs. Harriet Harman QC, have called for his
release. The Russian and Israeli governments have also expressed concern
and done the same.
Their call was the right and proper thing to do and I add my voice to
that call. I have never met or spoken to Mr. Kanu but I am moved by his
passion and courage. I am also persuaded by the logic and force of his
public assertions. He has made a compelling case for the establishment
of Biafra and millions of young Igbos from all over the world have
bought into it.
It is left for those that do not agree with him to make a better case
and to stem the Biafran tide. That is the monumental challenge that
those that do not agree with Mr. Kanu’s views or his methods have. I
have not always been on the same page with our Igbo brothers yet despite
that one thing is clear: only the callous would deny the fact that they
have suffered immeasurably in the Nigerian Federation over the last 50
years.
Only the uninformed would deny the fact that they have been
butchered, murdered, persecuted, broken, humiliated, insulted, cheated
and treated with contempt and disdain more than any other ethnic group
in the country since July 1966.
What the Nigerian state is confronted with in the new generation of
Igbos who refuse to be cowed is a time-bomb. Unlike their fathers they
cannot be appeased or intimidated. They are not fearful of the prospect
of a second civil war. They are not prepared to settle for crumbs and
neither do they fear death, conflict, defeat, incarceration, butchery or
persecution.
They are imbued with a spirit that cannot be suppressed and the more
they cry ”Biafra”, the more the spirits of the millions that were
slaughtered on the Biafran side during the civil war are invoked. The
more they cry ”Biafra”, the more the souls of the hundreds of thousands
of their people that were butchered during the barbaric pogroms in the
north in the mid-60’s and thereafter are remembered.
The more they cry ”Biafra”, the more they remember how their fathers
were stripped of everything after the civil war and how they have been
denied the opportunity to rise to the highest office in the land. The
more they cry ”Biafra”, the more they acknowledge and recognise the
bitter fact that the Buhari administration regard their kith and kin as
nothing more than third class citizens and pitiable prisoners of war.
The worst thing that the Nigerian authorities can do is to treat them
with levity or contempt.
They are angry, they are fed up, they refuse to be enslaved, they
want a brighter future and they have come to realise that they have
nothing to lose. The most inappropriate thing that President Buhari can
do is to continue to underestimate the power of their resolve or the
clarity of their intent. The worst thing that they can do is to begin to
jail them, to shed their blood and to take their lives.
The more you lock up the Biafrans, the more they will rise up. The
more you mock them, the more they will shout. The more you kill them,
the more their anger will be kindled. The more you deny them, the more
they will wax stronger. The more you treat them with disdain, the more
they will defy you. The more you treat them like slaves the more they
will aspire to break off and take their destiny into their own hands.
You cannot resist an idea whose time has come.
This is a fact that we must all accept and it is with this in mind
that I urge President Buhari and the Federal Government to not only
release Mr. Nnamdi Kanu but also to tread with the utmost restraint and
caution when dealing with those that are agitating for Biafra.
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