Who says the Igbos are marginalized and is the Niger delta not the fabled hen that continues to lay that golden egg every Nigerian is feasting on today? What have the Igbos given to Nigeria that other geographical zones have not contributed? How many Niger deltans have access to the nation’s oil blocks since the discovery of oil in Nigeria? When ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo effectively handled Nwazuruike and his Movement for the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) crowd, heaven did not fall in Nigeria. While then must the sky fall now with the Federal Government’s handling of Kanu, branding IPOB a terrorist organization? Nnamdi Kanu is a phenomenon that became a gigantic menace and an unwanted baggage.
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t is truism that one of the cardinal reasons that made most Nigerians to elect President Muhammadu Buhari into office on March 28, 2015, was the miserable security situation in the country under ex-President Goodluck Jonathan.Pathetically, for most of the years that Goodluck Jonathan presided over the affairs of the country, the nation was embroiled in needless bloodshed, senseless destruction of properties and unwarranted tension cum acrimony.
That is not to say that armed robberies and other heinous criminal activities did not rear their ugly heads. Above all, the adherents of the Boko Haram lunacy had a field day that culminated into the brazen abduction of the now famous Chibok Girls from their boarding facilities in Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State.
It was even revealed to a stunned nation by the former National Security Adviser (now late General Azazi) to ex-President Jonathan that the master minds cum sponsors of the Boko Haram madness were those disgruntled politicians who lost out to Jonathan within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the presidency.
Therefore, apart from the fact that the Buhari administration was empowered to confront the ugly security situation via the ballot box in 2015, the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria prioritized security as one of the fundamental obligations of any government in power to the people.
Not long after the Buhari presidency was ushered into office officially on May 29t,2015, that efforts were stepped up to arrest the unpalatable situation in the Northeastern part of the country with the physical relocation of headquarters of the armed forces to that part of the country.
Not too long after President Muhammadu Buhari was settling down to dish out his campaign promises to Nigerians, that a character that has become known as Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB),stepped up his activities of Igbo agenda on the nation.
The arrest and detention of Nnamdi Kanu by the nation’s security forces generated heated debate globally and nationally.
While Kanu was enjoying and swimming in the ocean of unprecedented goodwill and support from members of his tribe for throwing up the Igbo agenda on the nation, other Nigerians held divergent views, saying that Kanu’s IPOB has fundamental right to agitate for its interests, but never to dream of seceding from the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
To cut the long story short after searing judicial battles and strident propaganda machines carefully employed by Nnamdi Kanu and IPOB members (including sympathetic deafening choruses from international angles) calling for his release from the dungeon, the Federal Government was left with no other option at that point in time than to bend to pressure, which later materialized in the court rooms before Kanu was allowed to go free.
Letting Nnamdi Kanu off the hook of prison has its attendant stringent obligation and commitment, as his bail condition stipulated. But immediately Kanu breathed the air of freedom he started behaving like a rat out of a hat.
Furiously, Kanu paraded himself like a man above the law of the Federal Republic of Nigeria; recklessly threw his bail conditions into the gutter and meddled in the political affairs of Anambra State, asking Igbo voters to boycott the forthcoming Governorship election in the name of his peculiar Igbo agenda.
Kanu’s poke nosing with the Anambra Governorship election generated its own peculiar tension both in the media and on the political tarmac, as stakeholders engaged themselves in endless verbal and physical gymnastics.
Some political analysts including this writer wondered why Kanu was indulging in unnecessary troubled waters. In overshooting his unprecedented luck, Kanu indeed behaved like a mad bull in a Chinese circus show, which pulled everybody down within sight.
He forgot that there was a Federal Government in Nigeria with might; Kanu ignored countless counsels by well-meaning Nigerians to respect his bail conditions (which forbade him to address a mammoth crowd) handed down by a competent court of law in the land.
While Nnamdi Kanu was doing his IPOB thing, riding roughshod in the Igbo hinterland, creating unwarranted tension, panic and fear, capitalizing carefully on the absence of the then ailing President Muhammadu Buhari, the remnant of the terrorist bandits known as the Boko Haram (that had been pushed out of their comfort zone within the Sambisa forest) resurfaced in the North Eastern part of the country, with sporadic deadly attacks on defenseless civilians and military targets.
As I pen this piece some lecturers and engineers prospecting for oil in the Lake Chad arena are still being held by members of the Boko Haram lunatics.
So to say, the spate of insecurity nosedived across the country, while kidnappers and cult related violence cum armed robberies were gaining momentum; the boys in the Niger Delta creeks were brandishing their own product of resistance and relevance (threatening to blow more pipelines etc.).
Before long the military authorities seeing that the Nigeria Police were helpless in the pathetic circumstance, came up with what we now known as ‘Operation Python Dance’ and its counterpart nick named ‘The Crocodile Smile’ to sanitize the polity from the merciless grip of climate of insecurity.
The biggest casualty recorded so far by the Operation Python Dance is Nnamdi Kanu, IPOB and their fanatic adherents in the south east. When the python danced furiously to the home of Kanu’s father (a traditional ruler), looking for the IPOB leader, it did not reveal a palatable story.
What could Muhammadu Buhari’s administration have done with Kanu’s affront? Allow his rascality and brazen, but unattainable dreams to torment, haunt and harass the polity in Nigeria?
What does Kanu want? An independent state for the Igbo speaking people of Nigeria? Has anyone lectured him about the senseless and useless slaughter we called Nigeria civil war?
Why did Kanu’s father allow his son to conjure a keg of gun powder and sit on it at the same time in the name of parochial secessionist interest? Whose hero is Nnamdi Kanu?
Who says the Igbos are marginalized and is the Niger delta not the fabled hen that continues to lay that golden egg every Nigerian is feasting on today? What have the Igbos given to Nigeria that other geographical zones have not contributed?
How many Niger deltans have access to the nation’s oil blocks since the discovery of oil in Nigeria? When ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo effectively handled Nwazuruike and his Movement for the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) crowd, heaven did not fall in Nigeria.
While then must the sky fall now with the Federal Government’s handling of Kanu, branding IPOB a terrorist organization? Nnamdi Kanu is a phenomenon that became a gigantic menace and an unwanted baggage.
Those that said there is nothing wrong with Kanu and his doomed dreams, citing Fulani’s hidden agenda over the rest of the country; ethnic/tribal imbalance and Northern insincerity in appointments and policies etc., are entitled to their own opinions.
What we need is genuine restructuring that will encompass true fiscal federalism, equitable distribution of democratic dividends/ resources etc., not some opportunistic characters spoiling for unnecessary war or wanting a painful visit to yesteryears of sorrow and pogrom.
The current efforts being made by the Muhammadu Buhari’s administration in recognizing and financially settling of Biafran veterans is a fantastic approach to sooth the bruised ego of the ex-combatants.
This is another way of genuine national reconciliation which previous administrations ignored since after the monumental horror called the Nigerian civil war.
Well some critics have described the positive gesture coming from the Federal Government as a form of bribe given to the Igbos, but I see it as a wonderful act of statesmanship on the part of President Buhari.
There is no doubt that the Operations Python Dance (1) and Crocodile Smile (1) recorded huge success in combating criminality and other security challenges in isolated spots in Nigeria.
Therefore, the current Operation Python Dance (2) and Crocodile Smile (2) must never be used to militarize the polity, harass and intimidate the civilian populace; respect for fundamental human rights, right to peaceful assembly and unhindered movement of Nigerian citizens anywhere in the country must be strictly adhered to.
Law abiding Nigerians must never be allowed to suffer further pains or pangs in the face of the ongoing economic recession ravaging the people mercilessly. If criminals and criminality and other trouble makers/shooters must be curtailed and silenced in our nascent democracy, even with the assistance of Operation Python Dance and Crocodile Smile, so be it.
Nowinta wrote: Where We Are – A Call for Democratic Revolution in Nigeria
