Why I Support Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and IPOB
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My support for Mazi Nnamdi Kanu leans basically on two facts. Firstly, I agree with 85% of what he says; I disagree with 10%, and I am indifferent about 5%. Secondly, he is the only well-known Igbo activist who truly pleads the cause of the people, even if brutally honest.
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Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s struggle is based on one thing: the restoration of Biafra. The reason is that over 50 years after the supposed end of a war in which Nigeria killed 3 million Biafrans (including two million babies starved to death), the country has plunged into an irredeemable kind of backwardness.
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Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s position here is simple: since the union which you killed over three million Biafrans has not worked and since people are still dying, what is the need? Let us go our separate ways. But simple as this position is, it is very intricate. Whoever has read the history of Nigeria and of the Nigeria-Biafra war will realize how many twists of fate it has taken us to be where we are today.
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I remember reading Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani’s novel, “I Do Not Come To You By Chance” last year. There is a particular line that stuck with me in the whole of the book. It said, and I paraphrase, “Nigeria is a very difficult country. But once you have money and power, it is the sweetest place to be on earth.” This quote from Nwaubani’s Novel is Nigeria’s problem. From the vantage of an ordinary man brought up in the streets, who has continued to be in touch with the streets, every day, the reality of this hell-hole hits you. The painful struggle one has to go through to achieve a basic life, and the difficulties one has to encounter at every corner keeps coming at you. To survive in Nigeria alone resembles a Sisyphean struggle. But in the case of Sisyphus, it is his struggle which gives his absurd life an answer, while as a Nigerian, the struggle of the ordinary man makes him question his existence.
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When Nnamdi Kanu’s voice was first heard by a lot of people was in 2013–15, when he finally found his foot and established Radio Biafra to the heights as we know it today. In that period, he said something on the Fulani government which was to come to power in Nigeria, and I quote,[1] :
“As they campaign vigorously for elections, you would think, they are coming to grow the economy, enthrone justice, breed unity, and tolerance, love for one another.
“No, they are coming to enthrone Hausa/Fulani supremacy, to reposition the security agencies by sacking all competent hands and replace them with their kinsmen in order to drive their ethnic domination of the south. The Fulani herdsmen will be armed and encouraged to slaughter us with impurity and their masters will protect them.
“They are coming to ensure that my people are enslaved forever. Those who do not believe me will soon see it happen before their eyes. “The Fulani will take over the entire south as a continuation of their age-long agenda to Islamize Eastern Nigeria. They will brazenly seize our land in pretense of creating grazing fields for the Fulani. Then the conquest will be complete, we will become their serfs forever.”
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Every single thing Mazi Nnamdi Kanu said in that quote has happened. As a result, the masses no longer see him as an ordinary person. To most Igbo people, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is a prophet, or a spirit, a god. Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is no god. He is human and has his failings and imperfections, but he has a few things which Nigerian rulers and heads of organization do not have. This is where his apotheosis lies. Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is courageous, consistent and his struggle is on the side of the ordinary man. The Nigerian political elites and most recently, as the literary establishment as Pa Ikhide has been complaining for years now, have taken sides with the oppressors. In an oppressive establishment like Nigeria, the political class and the ordinary bourgeoisie are at the ends of a knife-edge. You cannot sit on the fence, because the knife edge is sharp. You must take sides, and the sharp edge butchers anybody who tries to sit on the fence. Albert Camus, in his essay, “The Writer and His Time” wrote, “The tyrannies of today are improved; they no longer admit of silence or neutrality. One has to take a stand, be either for or against.”
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The problem with people like Nnia Nwodo is not that he is a bad man. I have listened to some of his speeches, and I have taken some time to study him. He is a man of some intelligence form a talented family who have benefitted immensely from this arrangement called Nigeria. He is part of the elite, and like many of his fellow elites, he is not innocent of that tendency to want to be at the centre of every political emancipation. This is not what is bad. What is bad is that people like Nwodo will do anything to maintain their relevance even if the ordinary man bears the brunt.
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Talking about the problem with Kanu and Nwodo, a man who the former, not too long ago, took as a father will take a whole other essay which I hope to write some other time. But let me state here that, Nnia Nwodo is not the only man Kanu criticizes. Kanu criticizes Umahi and has said worse things about him; he criticizes Obiano, Rochas, Kalu, and all the failed Igbo rulers. He insults them. His language might not be cool, but the anger which inspires his words is not cool. That our mothers and daughters are being raped and our children being killed in Uzo-Uwani, Afikpo, Abakeleke, Okpanam and many other parts of Biafra land is not pretty; that over 150 peaceful IPOB protesters were brutally murdered while killer herdsmen are granted amnesty (and a statement that they can still be president of the country issued by a leading army officer) is not pretty; that 50 years after 3 million civilians (including two million starved babies were killed), the country is now the poverty capital of the world is not pretty. These are grueling facts before us. The reality of them upon the mind of a clear-headed human is devastating. But somehow, the elites are not touched enough to speak up. We know, yes, we all know that this union called Nigeria is not working and will never work again. Yet, our “intellectuals” have refused to think outside the box. You come from a country with the most talented black people, yet nothing to show for it; this reality is nothing less than depressing. In the name of the universe, do you expect Mazi Nnamdi Kanu to come up on Radio Biafra in the light of all these and preach a homily of love and peace?!
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One of the consistent criticism of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is that his method is not attractive, and he insults people too much. I don’t accept this criticism for the following reasons. The first is that the problem which Kanu fights is not a pretty one. Secondly, “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed.” Thirdly, rebellion is an act of resistance, and the act of resisting your enemies is not a kumbaya affair. Therefore Kanu’s method does not have to be attractive. Fourthly, if your oppressors agree with you, then you must go back to the drawing board; if your oppressors are not frustrated by your struggle, then you are good as having not started at all. I could go on and on.
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Another criticism of Kanu is that he doesn’t have intellectuals in his circles. I disagree with this, too, for the following reasons. First is that intellectualism is dead in Nigeria and History has shown us that intellectualism apart from being used to liberate the people, can also be used to enslave them. Secondly, the so-called intellectuals in Nigeria do not care and have never spoken up against the sufferings of the ordinary man in Nigeria. Here, let me give an example. The most well-known African literary critic of the age, Ikhide Ikheloa, has been ostracized from the literary community because he dared speak up against Buhari and insists that Nigerian writers hold El Rufai responsible for killing almost a thousand Shi’ites and burying them in Mass graves. Another recent example is Otosirieze losing his job at Brittlepaper because he dared make a post against Governor El Rufai’s wife defending her son on social media after he threatened to gang rape someone’s mother. No “intellectual” spoke up when it happened. Igbo so-called intellectuals like Charles Chukwuma Soludo, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Kingsley Moghalu are all in a romantic relationship with the arrangement called Nigeria. They have never for fear of the effect it might have on their careers spoken up against it. Apparently, they have a lot to lose. But they are elites, and they care nothing for dignity. Only Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is taking the pain to roll in the mud, which your so-called intellectuals have avoided like the plague.
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IPOB members have never killed anybody; they have never raped any woman or butchered any child in the name of Biafra. The biggest sin they have committed is that they are badmouthed, and they insult anybody who doesn’t see reason with them. I disagree with this fruitless criticism. Let me ask a question: why do you want an oppressed man to see reason with you when you have not succeeded in making his oppressor see reason with you or him? A man fighting for freedom and a revolution cannot be respectful. He is a rebel, and as such, civility is not in his code of conduct. Civility is the rule of the language of diplomats and policymakers who hold their meetings in air-conditioned offices, rest assured that the basic necessities of life are not a problem. The IPOB is made up of fed-up people, angry youths, and oppressed men and women who are simply sick and tired of all the shit they have to eat in the name of being Nigerians. Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is the only person who speaks their language. The language of revolution.
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I have taken the side of the ordinary man and the oppressed peoples. I have chosen to empathize with them because, in all honesty, I am one of them. I say no to oppression. I say no to a romantic relationship with an oppressive establishment. I say no to a country with no plans for its ordinary people and treats its defenseless like slaves. I say no to anybody who asks me to smile and be civil with my language so my oppressor can be happy with me and won’t be seen as a bigot.
Michael Chiedoziem Chukwudera is a writer and poet. Click here to follow him on Twitter
