It is already public knowledge that the Nigerian Supreme Court has slated the 15th of December, 2023 as the day, it shall give its final judgement on the issue tabled before it, between the IPOB Leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu vs the Federal government. Recall that two years ago, the Nigerian government abducted and extraordinarily renditioned the IPOB Leader from Kenya on false charges of committing treason against the Nigerian state, although a year later the Nigerian appellate court disagreed with the Federal government and went on to discharge, and acquit the IPOB Leader.
However, since 13th October 2022, the successive Nigerian governments has refused to respect the decision of the lower court. Thus, continued to illegally detain and incarcerate the IPOB Leader till date, and then approached the supreme court to downswing the judgement of the appellate court. It is important to emphasize that the appeal court acted in line, with the provisions of the Nigerian Constitution as well as International law and charters on the basic factors of concentration which is the Quest/right to Self-determination - which Mr Kanu and the Indigenous People Of Biafra, movement he leads professes - and the method, by which he [Kanu] was subsequently brought to Nigeria for trial.
Be it as it may, The fate of Mr. Kanu, IPOB – as a non-violent Self-determination Movement, Nigeria as presently constituted is dependent on the decision the supreme court proffers, come the 15th of December 2023. Being the highest court in the land, where all train stops at. IPOB is almost at the brink of exhausting all legal and conventional means within the confines of both Nigerian and International law, to resolving the age long dissonance over the Injustices meted against the people of Eastern Nigeria [Biafra] without violence or belligerence.
Although, the Federal government had consequently sorted to provoke the movement into arms struggle – which the height of it, was the extraordinary rendition of the IPOB Leader and the hybrid war it unleashed by implanting layers of Trojan horses and agent provocateurs, to infiltrate the movement, source up incriminating evidence to enable them to nail the IPOB leader and organization globally and simultaneously or possibly implode it from the within.
Yet, IPOB managed to hold off these provocation, filtered these bad eggs out and maintained its non-violent posture for the past two years. It was a concerted plan to dictate the plan for IPOB, in a terrain that the government had studied and booby-trapped accordingly. All these failed nonetheless.
However, should the Supreme Court fail to uphold justice, then it invariably implies that the IPOB movement is justified by all means, to seek including through violent means. Of course, in our contemporary world, justification is no longer enough reason for the downtrodden to seek justice by all means. A world where might is right. But, what if IPOB have also been developing its might and ramping up its strategic capability and potential for worst case scenario? The Eastern Security Network - a child of necessity created to combat the marauding Fulani terror herdsmen had remained faithful to this task without equivocation even in the face of unprecedented provocation and blackmail by various Nigerian security agencies. A paramilitary formation that was acknowledged by independent western sources to have started with, around 50,000 men have by recent confirmations from senior IPOB officials, snowballed into 200,000 over the course of two years.
What if IPOB following the inability of the Nigerian government to see reason in resolving the issues at hand, decides to change her non-violent status and redeploys the ESN from their primary assignment to a secondary one? Can Nigeria survive another civil war? With the level of economic decadence obtained in it? Some would argue that the western support remains prevalent, but taking cognizance of the strained conflict in Ukraine and the Israeli-Palestinian debacle, will the west simultaneously fund and weaponizing three major conflicts, In Ukraine, West-Asia and West-Africa without breaking in between? In a neighborhood where Nigeria is currently being loathed by many countries in West African sub region ( Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and God knows who else), coupled with the low morale obtained within the ranks of the Nigerian armed forces itself as a result of ultranationalist incendiaries by the ruling tribal jingoists, as well as low pay of servicemen.
Although wars/conflicts are unpredictable. Thus, there is no gainsaying that everything must go through as a particular party has planned beforehand. However, objective inferences can be drawn based on facts available to adjudge the possible trajectory things could be headed. For instance, during the Nigeria-Biafra war, the Biafrans who fought gallantly in defense of their lives and statehood but having been extremely shorthanded on the essential support needed to prosecute their defensive campaign unlike the offending Federal military government - who got three major world powers behind it namely, the United Kingdom, United States and Soviet Union amongst others - had an unparalleled advantage over nascent Biafrans. In fact, this was the key reason while France withdrew its covert support for Biafra. In their view, Biafra was doomed to lose.
On this premises, can we stand to make an inference that the advantage the Nigerian Government had during the 1967-70 war has shrunk drastically. Such overwhelming upper hand can no longer be guaranteed, as modern warfare and its complexities have broadened extensively. And, the international community is better informed on the Biafra issue, they are no longer fed with one-sided propaganda where they were convinced, that the aggrieved were the aggressors.
We earnestly pray and hope that the above illustration does not play out. This is why it is imperative that the Nigerian Supreme Court prevails on the issue objectively and the Federal government obliges and hearken to the voice of reason to, avert the catastrophe that might hit already fragile entity. As Africans we should be able to resolve disputed issue within ourselves without interference or guidance from the outside. The Biafra Quest is long overdue to be addressed and conducting a referendum is the most harmless and painstaking means to resolve it once and for all. May reason prevail over arrogance and obscenity.
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Written by: Enenienwite Ikechukwu
For: Family Writers Press International
