Biafra: Clampdown On Dissenting Voices Over Nnamdi Kanu Another Crying Blunder By President Buhari

I have found it absolutely necessary again to write in the course of the ongoing high-handedness in a shameless display by the Buhari-led Federal Government. Only today it made news headlines that the convener of Concerned Nigeria group, Deji Adeyanju, has been arrested by Nigeria's security forces over the protest against the planned secret trial of Nnamdi Kanu, the illegally detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).

For starters, while I join forces with the barrage of voices calling for his unconditional release, I condemn in the strongest terms the highhandedness being exhibited by the Abuja regime to crush every dissenting voice either by force of arms as we have witnessed recently or by a caprice which sees our common patrimony as their grandfathers' inheritance.

Events playing out marvellously today depicts a nation and a people at the crossroads with little or no hope at the mercy of grandees while the judiciary which is the hope of the common man has been hijacked to do the bidding of a Machiavelli who bestrides the Nigerian political world like a colossus while we thrive in dirt and dirty surroundings.

Nnamdi Kanu to the best of my knowledge having studied the obviously sad situation was driven by a compelling need to address the crying and monumental injustice being done not only to the Igbos but to all other ethnic nationalities in the South-East and Nigeria's Deep South states (South-South). To feign ignorance of this by the northern overlords certainly, amounts to nothing but postponing the evil day.

There is absolutely nothing that can stop the ongoing agitation for the emergence of the sovereign state of Biafra under the existing circumstances if what led to this agitation is not squarely addressed. The more the IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu is being held, the more every dissenting voice is crushed, the more the agitation grows and the more the international community is aware of what is happening in Africa's most populous nation in the south of the Sahara.

Every man is born free and, therefore, equal in rights and dignity. Kanu has not done anything wrong after all for calling for self-determination amid a wave of injustice being done to a people and a nation. Hence taking him into custody remains the worst blunder that could be done in any civilised society. There is no denying the fact that it is a part of his inalienable rights to protest against any perceived injustice.

To compound that crying blunder, Deji Adeyanju, was again today swooped upon by Buhari's secret agents. Into what dangers would this highhandedness plunge Nigeria by a country that is supposedly practising a constitutional democracy, if one may ask.

Nigeria never had it so bad when the last government under former President Jonathan ruled over Nigeria but today there is denying the fact that there is a gross abuse of Human Rights as orders by courts of competent jurisdiction are thrown into the trash can while the whims and caprices of certain overlords hold sway in a Machiavelli fashion, this I dare say breaks my spirit a great deal because it could be you tomorrow, you really never can tell.

Buhari must do the needful by urgently ordering the release of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra and urgently address the issues that make us differ.

*Iyoha John Darlington, a social activist, political analyst and public commentator on national and global issues wrote from Turin, Italy.