Woe Unto Me If I Follow Not In These Footsteps Of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu—MNK -By Joe Dauda

About two months ago, I stumbled upon a video of Nnamdi Kanu. The things I heard him say were quite intriguing. I can’t recall everything from memory but, just to paraphrase, he essentially said these words:

“I’m a dead man. I’m already a dead man. And the only thing that can bring me back to life is Biafra.”

I was so astounded by those words it caused me to have deep introspection. And that was what inspired this peace.

Just to be clear, although I have a lot of sympathy for people like Nnamdi Kanu who feel shortchanged in the Nigerian project and are fighting to become a separate nation, my preference is still for Nigeria to remain one. I have several reasons for this but the most important is probably my firm belief that if the perceived grievances of people like Nnamdi Kanu can be addressed (or begin to be addressed) they will no longer remember the struggle for secession. The struggle will just die a natural death. In other words, I believe that it is perceived marginalization and perceived injustice (or oppression, or whatever is out there that can cause one to feel aggrieved) that is making people want to leave the Nigerian federation. The logic is not complicated.

If a woman is enjoying her marriage, or finding it bearable, she will not just wake up one morning and begin to agitate for divorce. Rather, she will wish that her husband lives long so she can continue to enjoy marital bliss or at least continue to cope within the institution of marriage. So I really think that if we work on removing the cause, the effect will disappear.

I prefer Nigeria to remain one for another reason. I’m already a stakeholder in the Igbo community by virtue of marriage. So I prefer Nigeria to remain one because I don’t believe a breakup can ever be peaceful even if based on an agreement. In fact, even if you put a tough cookie like Donald Trump as Secretary General of the United Nations and make him responsible for the breakup, with UN soldiers under his command to whip everybody into line, complications could still arise. In view of the fact that the globalists at the UN will never allow an “agbero” like Trump to lead them, what chances are there that this process could ever be conducted peacefully? Under the current UN officials, any attempted breakup will likely result in the biggest conflagration in human history. So, for me, it’s no, thank you. No need to toy with such a potentially combustible endeavour that may resurrect the animosities that led to the civil war and result in another civil war that promises to be ten times more brutal and a hundred times more complex.

In exercising my freedom of expression as guaranteed under the Nigerian constitution, I dare say that it is not a crime for a group of persons to seek to secede from a country, whether that is Nigeria or any other country. While in the university, I was a Student Union activist and one of the things we learned while interacting with other activists such as late Chief Gani Fawehinmi and Barrister Femi Falana (who was then the President of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights, CDHR) was that there was a document known as the African Charter on Peoples’ And Human Rights. One of the provisions in that charter is the right to secede from a country. The reason for the secession is irrelevant. Whether valid or not, the people of every country that is a signatory to that charter have the right to seek to have their own country. That right is technically known as the right to self-determination.

So, in my view, Nigerian journalists failed in a way because they did not sufficiently educate Nigerians to understand that it is the right of a group of people to seek to secede. Perhaps this would have helped to make the whole situation less combustible because, although it is your right to seek to secede, there are internationally recognized procedures for this to happen. One of this is to hold a referendum. Lobbying is also part of the process because the referendum itself cannot just happen without political support and approval. In short, the process of seceding in a peaceful manner resembles running for political office and is actually a whole lot more complicated. But it is a legitimate ambition.

This is why I feel bad when I hear supposedly educated Nigerians badmouthing people who desire to secede from Nigeria. They seem not to understand that it is not a crime. It is a right guaranteed by that multilateral agreement known as the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. And just in case you did not know, Nigeria is a signatory to that Charter, which we signed during the civilian administration of Alhaji Shehu Shagari. The Charter was also domesticated during Shagari’s reign, shortly before General Buhari and his fellow Generals took over power and sent Shagari packing. That Charter has been part of Nigerian law since 1983 and it is only ignorance or malice, or both, that will cause a person to accuse another of committing a crime just by that person asking to no longer be a part of Nigeria.

Long before IPOB was proscribed and long before its armed branch (the ESN) was formed, many people already considered Mazi Nnamdi Kanu a criminal and a treasonous Nigerian (and even a terrorist) just for attempting to exercise a right guaranteed under Nigerian and international law—the right to self-determination. What a shame!

Interestingly, IPOB was speedily proscribed in 2017, more than three years before its armed wing, the ESN, was formed, and while it was still a self-proclaimed non-violent movement. In contrast, even after a court order, the same Buhari government that promptly proscribed IPOB appeared very reluctant to designate bandits as terrorists, in spite of the mayhem and large-scale kidnappings they were openly perpetrating, and in spite of the fact that they had already killed hundreds of Nigerians by this time and were holding scores of others hostage. But the details are more disturbing.

The designation of IPOB as a terrorist organization was based on an order by Justice Abdu Kafarati on the 20th of September, 2017. That very day, Abubakar Malami (Buhari’s Minister of Justice) gazetted IPOB’s designation. That very day the court order was given! But even though Justice Taiwo Taiwo of the Abuja Federal High Court ordered that bandits be declared a terrorist organization on the 25th of November 2021, the same Malami who was excited about gazetting the designation of IPOB on the very day the court made its declaration was not so excited to do the same in the case of bandits. One has to wonder why.

It was until 2022 that bandits were declared terrorists by the Buhari administration. Again, one has to wonder why. IPOB was established since 2012 and nothing happened to them until 2017 when Buhari was in power. And the ESN was not formed until 2020. The trajectory suggests that they were attempting to exercise their right to self-determination beginning from 2012 and were largely ignored by the Jonathan administration, provoked into clashes with security operatives by the Buhari administration, quickly labeled a terrorist group, and then threatened existentially until the formation of the ESN, which seems to have been established as a mechanism for self-defence. If IPOB was armed or violent, there wouldn’t have been any need to establish the ESN. And yet this self-determination group was labeled a terrorist organization with more alacrity than a group actually destroying Nigerian lives and threatening national security. The summary of the matter is that IPOB was mishandled. And in my view, as already stated, the Nigerian media is partly responsible for these inconsistencies even though I would say they eventually played a role in literally compelling the Buhari administration to abide by the ruling of the court and declare that the bandits terrorizing Nigerians were terrorists. But history will never forget that the Buhari administration seemed to have been reluctant to declare bandits as terrorists. If action speaks louder than words, they were clearly reluctant. In an apparent move to deceive Nigerians, the Buhari administration backdated the gazetting of bandits as terrorists so history will not remember what they did. They published the declaration in 2022 but claimed that the court order was gazetted in 2021, specifically on the 29th of November, which was four days after Justice Taiwo Taiwo’s ruling. Why did they wait until 2022 to publish the gazetted court order? Why was IPOB’s declaration published on the same day Justice Kafarati issued the court order? I know you understand what happened because you are smart. So I will leave it there.

Anyway, what I heard Nnamdi Kanu say in the video I watched impressed me as to his commitment to his cause, which is the actualization of Biafra. I felt rebuked by his declaration that he was dead and that only the actualization of Biafra could bring him back to life. I thought about my Christian walk. I asked myself if I could talk that way about Jesus Christ my Lord and Saviour. Could I manifest such devotion to His cause as to say that I was dead and that the only thing that could activate my life was service to Him?

How could Nnamdi Kanu be more committed to his Biafra struggle than I was to my Lord and Saviour? I remember I used to admire Islamic terrorists using the same logic. While not buying their ideology or even their theology, I have often admired the courage of these terrorists who are so committed to their cause they are willing to lay down their lives. It is not an easy thing to do and you can call them brainwashed all you want but it is not easy to agree to die for something you believe. Yet, that must be the standard, especially for someone like me who truly believes that there is One true God and that Jesus Christ is His only begotten Son. Especially for someone like me with the knowledge of end times prophecy, most of which have been fulfilled and are being fulfilled even right now.

It was a moment of introspection and I realized that, unless I was willing to make such commitment to Jesus Christ with my life and count it as nothing except in service to Him, then I was lacking in commitment. Not surprisingly, the Bible actually states that God demands such loyalty. There are many portions of Scripture that teach this truth. A few will suffice.

Romans 6:11, 13

2 Corinthians 5:14-15

Colossians 3:3

In light of all this I solemnly declare: woe unto me if I do not follow in these footsteps of Nnamdi Kanu. From henceforth, the motto of my life will be the motto of Paul the Apostle.

Philippians 1:21

“For to me to live is Christ

And to die is gain.”

Amen.

So help me God.