By Sunny Igboanugo
Friends, Nigerians, countrymen! Lend me your ears! I have come to condemn Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and not to praise him! The evil that men do, in the past, lives after them, but today, not only lives after them, but with them. And so, it is with Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, who is today having his well-deserved comeuppance as a sole occupant in the dark, sticky and cold dungeon of the Sokoto Prison.
Yes! Such a deserving reward for a man who killed 30,000 of his brothers. Yes! You heard that – you heard well – you heard right – 30,000 souls wasted. Yes! Orji Uzor Kalu was keeping records. And you know, OUK is an honourable man! Was he not governor of Abia State at a time? Is he not a Senator now? Who should know if not the wise man from Igbere, Bende Local Government of Abia State?
Now, let me tell you what you might not know about OUK and this Biafra that has now brought such calamity of colossal proportion to Ndigbo through IPOB? How many of you, dear compatriots know that it was through this Biafra that OUK met his political nemesis – or waterloo – if you like?
How? You would ask me and I’ll answer. OUK, was at a point one of the most popular Onye Igbo living on mother earth. He was even as popular as MNK, if not more popular. I shall prove this because I was at the centre of it all. You know Ndigbo are forever in search of a mouthpiece or authentic leadership. At that time OUK provided both. It started with that outing on that day in the year 2000. I remember vividly, as a reporter representing The Guardian in Enugu.
We all had rushed to Hotel Presidential in the state capital, where the then five South East governors had met. It was yet another cry of marginalisation against Ndigbo in Obasanjo government as President. While his colleagues appeared reticent, cagy and prevaricating on the raison d’etre, it was this selfsame OUK that took the gauntlet and spoke forcefully. The next day, the headlines told the story. Newspapers were awash, feasting on Kalu’s acerbic words that lacerated the President deeply.
Of course, Obj, not one to be browbeaten or let sleeping dogs lie roared back like the lion he was. But surprisingly, while his other colleagues recoiled and returned to their shells like disturbed snails, OUK stood tall and fought back, sparing no unkind words in confronting Baba Iyabo. That was it! Ndigbo had found another man of courage to tell their story and confront their foes.
I still recall that fateful day at the Federation Hall, Hotel Presidential in Enugu in 2021. It was OUK’s day at that year’s edition of World Igbo Day Summit, organised by the World Igbo Congress, a conglomeration propelled by Igbo leaders in the various parts of the word teaming up with like minds at home in a forceful move to create a new base of Igbo leadership.
The only person that had created such crowd in the quantity, but quality of attendance, was the late Ikemba Nnewi, Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. Remember the Ezeigbogburugburu at such rare events like the 2004 Mkpoko Igbo meeting in Enugu. I recall how people were practically sitting on each other’s heads and how even an ant could not crawl freely by – how the doors and windows were thrown open and people who found no space inside the hall, primed themselves by the windows and stretching their necks to at least catch his words if they couldn’t see him.
It was at that event that Kalu referred to Igbo leaders as “errand boys” to people in authority. Remember how the media celebrated that event and feasted with that headline! It was not only OUK’s words that travelled far and wide. His image and influence too.
In fact, I remember a particularly personal experience. I had visited one of OUK’s colleagues, a governor with whom I had more than a formal relationship.
I recall as we discussed freely on every subject matter in the world including the obvious gossips men engage in. I had already destroyed two criminally-cold Odeku, which I downed with tastefully-spiced, highly-tempting assorted roast goat meat on the centre table in front of me and was on the third, when my friend, introduced the OUK matter.
“This thing Orji is saying. I agree with him. I admire him,” my friend had ventured. “But you know I can’t do it,” he added – an unsolicited angle that implied an admixture of several emotions ranging from admiration, envy, frustration and even lamentation about his own inability. “But you’re more educated that him,” I interjected, to which he offered again – “but I can’t.”
That was OUK at that time. But then, the cookie crumbled. Nobody knows what entered his head. It must have been the story of that nwa nza, who ate so much and became so full that he challenged his chi to a wrestling match. One morning, Nigerians woke up to screaming headlines in various national newspapers.
One screamed: “Kalu apologises for Ndigbo fighting Biafran war!” That was it. It was like the man who built the Burj Khalifa coming one night to bury dynamites at the base, igniting it to bring the world’s tallest building down to rubbles. A gale of anger swept across Igboland. Denunciation, odium, insult, curses! They came in torrents from individuals and groups. They disavowed; they denounced? Nwataa ekwuwaa onu! Who sent him?
Having been blown-up from the foundation, the intricately-organic, boisterous and humongous trust architecture erected on the Igbo question in Nigeria has since crumbled – dissolving and disappearing like salt on impact with water leaving the once dearly-loved OUK empty and vulnerable. But OUK is a wise man. He wouldn’t be where he is today without that highly-prized element of survival – wisdom – street-wisdom as we call it here.
He has since done the needful – he simply took his equipment elsewhere. Today, he is the official and unofficial mouthpiece of the same forces he appeared to have detested so much in that short period of his reign as, what did they call him then? – The authentic Igbo leader. He has firmly displaced the errand boys of Igboland and assumed their role with the same boldness and fearlessness he confronted Obj to the admiration of even his colleagues.
What is more? APC, has offered him the platform! Today, he is the one preening, burnishing, deodorising, advertising and trumpeting every fetid, stinking, smelly, scheme dished out against Ndigbo from the APC mountainous compost.
Yes! Every putrid, decomposed and rotten element from the APC dumpsite is now handed over to him to clean up and throw to the people as their due offering – the same people he claims to love and lead.
Just as he was never far from his “friend” Muhammadu Buhari, today he is not only by the side of Bola Tinubu, his supposed mate in the class of ’99, but apparently squats somewhere in the ante-room of the Villa, waiting for the bell summoning him to another errand to take to his people.
That is the only reason he will look Ndigbo, nay, the world in the face and tell them that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu killed 30,000 Igbo people – probably more than Osama Bin Laden did as leader of Al-Qaeda. Or wasn’t that what he meant? Don’t ask me if he deliberately withhold the angle of his “friend” – Buhari in the details of those deaths, which he gleefully fielded out to his audience. Ask him when you see him.
More importantly, ask him also, did these 30,000 wasted souls include the young men massacred at the Onitsha Headbridge for just waving the Biafran flag which Buhari considered an act of terrorism? Did it include those wasted through the bullets of Buhari’s men at a school in Emene Enugu, or those men and women seen in a primary school, said to be somewhere in Okigwe, clapping and singing, when men dressed in military gears arrived, knelt down, took aim as in a shooting range and opened fire on? Even Buhari, OUK’s friend could not brace himself to watch the replay when confronted with the video in his interview with Al-Jazeera.
Did it include those who died in Operation Python Dance, including those who were mowed down in Kanu’s Afara Ukwu home in Umuahia, OUK’s backyard.
Yes! OUK told Ndigbo not to be emotional at the fate of MNK but hold him responsible for those 30,000 souls. Why not? But before then, he also needs to clear another intriguing factor? How come since the death of his idol all seem to have suddenly gone quiet with the UGM? How come the same UGM whom Buhari, a General in the Nigerian Army and a former Military Head of State, couldn’t deal with are now being smoked out from their fortresses like bush rats.
How come that they are now being demystified? Recent videos have shown people in Ihiala, Orsu, Lilu and other communities in Anambra and Imo, who had been sacked by the so-called UGM are now returning to their home, clearing the bushes and restoring their houses?
Surprisingly, they are doing so under Tinubu – a bloody civilian – at the death of Buhari – a General? What happened? What magic did Tinubu do? Did I hear you say the difference is in the absence of the “Original Sin? That Tinubu is not continuing the Biafran war against Ndigbo the way Buhari was, which is actually at the root of the entire saga and the reason Ndigbo died wotowoto under his supervision – at least, if Tinubu is, not with the same passion, the same hatred, the same bitterness or the same vengeance? Well, well!
Suddenly, the camps of the UGM – those impregnable fortress not even the world-class Nigerian Army that saved the people of Liberia and Sierra Leone could not penetrate – are now being breached by ordinary ragtag civilian forces and their occupants pulled out and taken away, shaking like leaves – the cowards they are.
In Anambra, for instance, we hear stories and entertained with images of how the Agunechemba – Soludo’s army, daily storm the camps of the evil men, which before now, not even the most fortified soldiers in the world could attempt and vanquish the so-called dreaded occupants, who had remained untouchable for years.
Suddenly, South East governors, who hitherto threw their hands in the air to the daily bloody assaults of the blood-thirsty group during Buhari’s time, seem to have found not only a fresh gusto, but the final solution to the menace.
No more for the apparent and obvious invincibility of the gang of killers. No more storming of prisons and releasing inmates, no more burning of police stations, no more attacking and killings at military checkpoints or destroying INEC facilities. South East is now singing a new song! Only because Buhari is no more?
One more thing! MNK is not the only Igbo the APC appears interested in his case. Now, they have dealt with the noisy International Terrorist – apologies James Omotosho – Justice of the Federal High Court (JFHC), what about Peter Obi?
Tinubu, has just conveyed to him through Bayo Onanuga that he is in his radar. Before now the former Governor of Anambra State and Labour Party candidate in the 2023 presidential election has been accused of everything evil under the Nigerian sun.
Apart from accusing him of sponsoring the last hunger protest that reverberated across Nigeria, last year, Tinubu, through Onanugu and Reno Omokri, say he was the one who went to tell POTUS Donald Trump that Muslims are killing Christians in Nigeria. They say it was Obi who asked POTUS Trump to come gun-a-blazing!
For this “atrocious” act to Nigeria, the President has promised neither to forget or forgive.
Now the question to OUK: What should Obi do? It is evident that since that criminal act of undressing the big Lagos masquerade, exposing and disgracing it in that 2023 election, the Egugun house has neither forgotten nor forgiven and is out to have its pound of flesh.What should Ndigbo – nay – the world expect about their beloved son? Another MNK fate?
But ultimately, the bigger question is the bigger question. How are Ndigbo going to survive the APC-Nigeria now that it is obvious that handing them down the fourth-class citizen is not enough and the APC wants more. We must ask, because, OUK – you’re not only our eyes and ears – you’re an honourable man – a distinguished Senator!
