Nnamdi Kanu and Royal Pleaders

By Olakunle Abimbola

Does a fugitive have any leverage under the law?

Nnamdi Kanu, the controversial leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and a coterie of royals in Orlu, Imo State, appear to think so.

Kanu’s mother, Sally, just died in Germany after an illness. As a fellow human, your heart must go out to him and his family, especially to Kanu as the first son. A mother is an indescribable pearl no one wants to lose, no matter how old they grow. And when they pass, the ultimate duty and joy, for the child, is to bury them.

That, however, is in the realm of sympathy and empathy; a manifestation of our common humanity. Mixing that with the complications of the law, especially the consequences of its disobedience, is pushing raw sentiments too far.

Which was why it was rather rich, when Kanu was reported thinking aloud, wishing he be allowed to come home, bury his mother and quietly fizzle out.

Well, since when did a democratic order, driven by due process, start stopping a law-abiding citizen from coming in to bury his or her mother?

Of course, the key word is “law-abiding”. If the law is ruptured, that equation changes. But shouldn’t that be trite?

That is why the Orlu monarchs’ take on the matter is rather amusing. It started with a plea and ended with a veiled threat. But its soul and driving spirit is emotive blackmail.

Speaking through Eze Gideon Ejike, the royals wanted President Muhammadu Buhari to allow Kanu to come into Nigeria to bury his mother “without molestation”. Then the not-so-subtle threat: the United Nations should prevail on Nigeria to grant Kanu the coveted passage.

Read Also: Nnamdi Kanu: A continuing tragedy
Then the doting endorsement: “Kanu is not a terrorist. Terrorists kill but we are yet to see any bloodshed by Kanu,” Ejike declared. “He is our hero and should be allowed to bury his mother before the beginning of next year. He deserves the honour and right as the first son to bury his mother.”

Now, that’s very interesting — a royal diktat, huffing with entitlement, rogue and royal; ringing with an impatient deadline, severe scolding and hot lecture on citizens’ filial rights, to a savage and insensate order, dead to basic norms, tradition and culture!

Nice try! For all you know, the camp of the converted is already berserk with incestuous roar and delirious cheer! Still, until these royals set up their own democratic feudalism in which their whims are law, all these bombast would remain within the confines of royal delusion.

How all of these would help Kanu’s case (if anything can), under a democracy structured on law, is difficult to see. By first routinely flouting his bail conditions, then eventually jumping bail and fleeing the land, Kanu has mocked and baited that same law.

So beyond emotions really, how can his case be helped, even under common sense, other than returning to, like a man, face the consequences of cheating the judicial process, instead of resorting to a lather of sentiments?

Still, the royal fathers are no fools. They follow a well-beaten Nigerian track: start a whispering campaign hinged on scalding emotions; ensure it gathers traction as full blast propaganda; then adroitly wheel it as the latest manifestation of the much lamented ethnic victimhood!

But before folks start running ahead of themselves, the fact is the federal executive need not lift a finger in Kanu’s case. If he sets foot on Nigeria, the judicial process would auto-trigger.

If you jump bail, it is ultimate folly to expect the same law you played for a fool would wrap you in a warm embrace. The law may be an ass but it’s doubtful if it’s that asinine!

So, maybe the Orlu monarchs should spare the president their sweet jeremiad and zoom in on the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), in whose court (every pun intended!) the ball is.

Even then, how would the poor CJN handle it all? Pass a judicial decree ordering the judge handling the Kanu trial to annul, from his records and from public memory, that Kanu jumped bail, and bragged he wasn’t bound by the law trying him?

After that, how does he, open sesame-wise, blot out the notorious facts of Kanu’s poor sureties left in the lurch, when the judicial prodigal took off?

O, maybe the CJN would even enlist the help of the Senate president, to help placate Ike Ekweremadu, the former deputy Senate president, who went to Germany to savour iri-ji (new yam), only to be pelted and almost lynched with the same treasured tuber, for which his throat tickled?

Well, maybe this particular one is a family affair, to which others should not poke their nose! But the fact is it all happened in the Nigerian space, which that kind and loving family shares with others!

What a peculiar mess!

Peculiar mess! That about captures what Kanu has made of himself, the crude and uncouth way he prosecutes his IPOB campaign; and how he has soiled — nay, poisoned — Igbo relations with other ethnics in the country.

At the zenith of his campaign of sweet hate and crispy bile, the Fulani were the very Satan; the Hausa the grand fools to have suffered, so gladly, the tiny Fulani; the Yoruba were supine slaves, lost under the peonage of the so-called Hausa-Fulani; and the Igbo reasonable and moderate are the scorned Okoro-Awusa, as former Rochas Okorocha, the former Imo governor, was scornfully dismissed in the safe and secure ethnic laager IPOB had erected!

Things got to a head when some equally hot-headed northern “youths” read out the riot act — all Igbo must leave the North, with a deadline to boot!

But just as the Orlu royals now remember that Kanu has the “right and honour” to come bury his mother, even when they kept loudly mute as Kanu made mincemeat of others’ rights and honour, his elders never cautioned him, when he was launching unprovoked and combustible slurs against other ethnic groups — until the innocent Igbo in the North were about becoming scape goats, of a tongue-loose, hate-filled prodigal!

That was a very dangerous juncture, that nearly brought Nigeria back to the tragedy of 1966.

Whereas the terrible pogrom forced the Easterners East-ward in 1966, in a last-ditch effort at self-preservation, Kanu was jeopardizing the Igbo in the North: belching ethnic hate and courting needless disaster.

Talk of history nearly repeating itself as farce! But thank God, reason prevailed.

Every part of the country have their own “Kanu”, a high priest in the tabernacle of the reckless, bordering on the insane, spewing ethnic poison.

The South West has a relay of leaking mouths, dedicated to spewing nonsense. A bloc, in the North, even calls itself elders. But they are so juvenile and reckless, they would put callow youths to shame.

Still, both regions have succeeded in rendering these lobbies veritable nobodies, hankering after recognition that would never come. The Igbo elders should do the same.

Yes, Kanu has the right to come bury his mum. But by making himself a fugitive from the law, he has all but ruptured that right–and no sentimental rapture can put that right.

His elders should bluntly tell him that, rather than start a campaign that is a clear and wilful insult to the rest of law-abiding Nigerians.