By Aoiri Obaigbo
I thought that shouting in court, being unruly and abrasive, making a court clown of his lawyer, dismissing his legal team and pretending he knows enough about the jungle of legalism were part of the theatrics of gaining control of the narrative as self appointed supreme leader.
When he listed 21 political heavyweights as his witnesses, I thought in terms of shifting the court away from self defence to establishing the marginalisation of the his people. Listing some Igbo leaders, I thought was to make them feel remose for not being transformational enough and exemplary of the eldorado the East is projected to become after separation, under Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s supreme leadership.
When he suddenly switched to the already exhausted strategy of a “no case and show me the law” as his defense window narrowed, I was literally expecting he’d pull a rabbit out of his hat.
At the time he foreclosed his Mandela moment to address not just the court, but the entire earth, with the same antics of irrational behaviour, I had to go back to listen to the series of allegedly offensive broadcast.
I did this while mentally and emotionally spending his first night of official isolation with him behind the cold bars of prison.
I realised that the sum of his erratic courtroom drama— firing legal teams, harassing counsel, refusing to mount a defense, and insisting that “no one can convict him.” were not consistent with rational political dissent but were symptoms of internal instability.
I fear that solitary imprisonment will only destroy Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. His behaviour in court and in his broadcasts shows something deeper than defiance. It is not normal for anyone to say that Igbo is cursed. Declaring that “Igbo is cursed”, is an illogical and self‑contradictory statement.
For anyone to boast that they can play God reflects a delusional grandiosity. Not even Genghis Khan or Adolf Hitler is on record for making such a claim.
Promoting the conspiracy that President Buhari was replaced by a Sudanese clone, even when his interviewer Dele Momodu confirmed that he saw the tyrant with his own eyes, is consistent with clinging to the figments of your mind.
It goes against any kind of logic or model of freedom fighting to decree that whoever goes to work on Monday must die, instilling fear and economic paralysis on the people whose cause you’re fighting.
To direct people to kill policemen on radio, or to demand that one of his henchmen be buried with 2000 human heads don’t sound like what someone with a British degree in Economics would normally promote. It’s the most grotesque and irrational proclamation in modern airwave.
It appears that in place of the vision, sagacity, maturity, and strategic intelligence required to purse the sensitive and consensus building project like self-determination, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has been saddled with pure passion without any plan and without real control.
Against the backdrop of his series of broadcast, his erratic courtroom behavior takes on a concerning hue. Firing legal teams, harassing counsel, refusing to mount a defense, and insisting that “no one can convict him.” These are not the words of a healthy mind. They are cries that point to a man who needs sympathetic evaluation, not isolation in a cell.
Solitary confinement does not heal delusion, and does not restore clarity. It magnifies delusion and breaks the mind further. If justice is truly about fairness, then it must recognise when punishment is misplaced.
Moreover, the UN Mandela Rules classify prolonged solitary confinement (beyond 15 days) as cruel, inhuman, and degrading.
What Kanu needs is medical attention, not solitary walls. To keep him locked away without care is not justice, but cruelty. Justice should not be confused with punishment when the problem is more likely about mental health.
We must remember that justice is not only about punishment, it is about humanity. If we allow solitary confinement to replace medical care, we are not protecting society, we are abandoning compassion.
Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s words and actions may have hurt many, but they also reveal a man deeply in need of professional help. To insist on isolation is to magnify his probable condition and deepen the pain of those who follow him. True justice must seek healing, not destruction.
We must recognise that Justice without humanity isn’t justice at all. Because when punishment replaces compassion, society will gradually lose its soul.
