The head of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) group, Nnamdi Kanu has
stated that “Biafra has come to stay” despite his incarceration.
Kanu, a pro-Biafra leader whose arrest sparked a wave of protests across
Nigeria’s southeast has told AFP from jail he is a “prisoner of
conscience” and vowed to realise his dream of an independent state.
The pro-Biafran is accused by the federal government of “propagating a
secessionist agenda” with the intention to “levy war against Nigeria”.
Kanu, who also runs the London-based Radio Biafra, is facing charges of
treasonable felony, managing an unlawful society and illegally shipping
radio equipment into the country.
He has been in custody since his arrest in October, despite being granted
bail, and denied all charges.
His arrest and continued detention has made him a figurehead for his
supporters, whose repeated marches in the southeast have increasingly led
to clashes with the police.
“Biafra has come to stay,” Kanu told AFP in a text message via his
brother, Prince Emmanuel Kanu, who met him on Thursday in Kuje prison on
the outskirts of Nigeria’s capital Abuja.
“They will kill us but by the end Biafra will come,” the 48-year-old
added. “I am a prisoner of conscience and killing unarmed Biafran
protesters is a crime against humanity.”
– ‘Third-class citizens’ –
A previous unilateral declaration of an independent Republic of Biafra in
1967 led to a brutal civil war that left more than one million dead in
nearly three years of fighting.
Forced to surrender and chastened by war, dreams of a separate state for
the ethnic Igbo group — the third largest in the country — waned.
But Kanu’s arrest and detention has galvanised support for the Biafra
movement among young people who never knew the horrors of war and have
little to lose in fighting for a better life.
Today the former regional power is impoverished, with dilapidated
infrastructure and high unemployment fuelling resentment against the
federal government.
“We have been failed in so many ways,” Kanu said, describing Igbos as
“third class citizens”, echoing many in the region who say they are still
being punished for the civil war.
Kanu, who has described Nigeria as a “zoo” which “has to come to an end”,
was a relative unknown before his arrest.
But President Muhammadu Buhari, facing security threats from Boko Haram in
the northeast and an uneasy peace in the oil-producing south, has said
Kanu poses a threat to Nigeria’s fragile unity.
In December, a finger-wagging Buhari said Kanu committed “atrocities”
against Nigeria, adding “there’s a treasonable felony against him and I
hope the court will listen to the case”.
Police crackdown –
Dressed in an outfit of pristine white and sporting a neat salt-and-pepper
beard, Kanu last appeared in public at an Abuja court Tuesday, arriving in
handcuffs and flanked by prison officers.
His lawyer spent the bulk of the afternoon fighting a state application to
have some proceedings held behind closed doors.
“When people are refused access to the court, I ask myself are the
defendants actually condemned before they are heard?” said Chuks Muoma,
warning against a “secret trial.”
The prosecution alleges Kanu was running an armed group with ritual
baptisms and young men conscripted as ” soldiers”.
Kanu’s half-sister, Tonia Kanu, said the current response to the protests
was only worsening the situation.
After the judge adjourned Kanu’s case until February 19, Tonia received
reports that police had shot dead protesters in the southeast city of Aba.
A day later, police confirmed two protesters were killed, with 21 IPOB
members arrested.
“People are being killed every day just because of peaceful protest. It’s
too bad,” Tonia told AFP.
She flicked through her Facebook feed on her smart phone to show gory
photos of dead protesters and a coffin covered with the Biafran flag —
red, black and green with a yellow rising sun.
“The violence is to scare people, for them not to be serious,” she said.
“But the more you kill them the more they multiply.”