KANU, SUNDAY IGBOHO AND THE REST OF US

KANU, SUNDAY IGBOHO AND THE REST OF US!

For sometimes, commenting on national issue is becoming a burden to me because "kaka ki ewe agbon de, sise loun pele si and kaka ki o san fun iya aje, o fi gbogbo omo bi obirin" my apologies to Evangelist Niyi Adedokun, the Yoruba Gospel Musician who shook our airwaves in the 1990s in his famous track: 'Omo nijiria Ileya'. Sincerely, Nigeria issues are not only daunting but they're capable of giving one sleeplessness nights. 

Of recent, insecurities to lives and properties have been at the front burnner of national discourse. Everywhere and anywhere appears unsafe from the North to South, and East to West. While the North is under sieged of banditry and terrorism all thanks to bandits and Boko Haram siasme twins; the South East and South South are engulfed with kidnapping, and midless killings by unknown gunmen. Added to this is herders/farmers menace. The South West is also not left out, kidnappings and terrorization by Fulani herders on farms are the other of the day. 

We're living in dangerous era which is a signal of the failure of the State to lift up to its expected responsibility, and since nature abhors vacuum, villains and saints appear as heroes. Kanu was birthed as the saviour of the South Easterners and Sunday Igboho as the liberator of the Yorubas. From nowhere, they became part of our national discourse and national lexicons. They became the news and the news makers. 

Unfortunately, the government of the day failed to learn from history. It failed to manage them or at least respond appropriately by nipping the issues that brought them to limelight in the bud, so they grow in leap and bounds with fans, sympatizers, loyalists and supporters. So we're where we're today and the rest they say is history. 

Kanu had been rearrested, but will his arrest brings an end to Biafra agitation? I strongly doubt. And this is I say based on the fact of history. Let me cite some instances. One, the killing of Bala Yusuf (I'm not sure I get that first name right), the Boko Haram founder didn't stopped the attrocities of the group. Two, the killing of Ken Saro Wiwa and other nine ogonis didn't stopped the Niger Delta agitations. Three, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr didn't stopped the call for black emancipation in the USA. The same way the ranshacking of Igboho house and arrest of his comrades may not cease the call for Self-determination.

This is because the path to peace and progress is justice and equity which the present Nigeria conflagration lacks. Historically, the Nigeria State was poorly configured, and presently it's being poorly mismanaged (I'm sorry if you don't like my use of the word 'mismanaged'; but honestly, that is how feel presently, so if I use the word 'manage', I will be speaking against my conscience). 

I don't like or hate Nnamid Kanu nor Sunday Igboho because I don't believe the division of the Nigeria State will bring an end to the myriads of problems we face as a people. At the top, there is no division on the basis of ethnicity or religion, if there is anyone, it's on the basis on "who gets what, when and how", my credit to Harold Laski. Yet, they've the rights to determine whether they want to live under an 'unjust system', 'unjust government', and 'unjust society'. 

In the theory of State, men (and women, girls, boys, young and old inclusive) submit their rights to a sovereign for order, peace, progress, justice and equity, because life outside the state appratus was 'nasty, brutish and short' paraphrasing the submission of John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. However, when the 'sovereign' represented by the modern State failed in its obligation to protect and promote people interests and rights, individuals and groups were free to withdraw their allegiance to the State. 

This is what the call for Self-determination  by Kanu and Igboho represents. I've read somewhere that the Nigeria Constitution doesn't recognize call for Self-determination, but I'm quick to remind such propagandists to the above essence of the State and the Atlantic Charter of 1945 ( I'm not sure if the year is correct) which grants individuals and groups inalienable rights of life and dignity, and freedom to 'self-governing' status which is one of the fundamental bases upon which our Independence and other colonial territories were built upon. 

Self defense is also a known mantra principle of law. If you slapped me, I've the right to prevent you from slapping again or even slapping my own back just as if you come with a gun to my house, and I've Cutlass to defend myself, I'm free to use such weapon to my advantage because my right to life is sacrosanct before God and under International Law. The present reality today is that a group of people are terrorizing another group of people, and the umpire rather than adjudicating is holding some groups' hands, while the other is being empowered to perpectrate their evil acts. You cannot be beating a child and preventing him from crying at the same time so that close neighbor won't hear. You either choose not to beat him, or beat him and allow him to cry. 

Like many Nigerians I await the end of this present social and political madness. How soon it will fizzle away, I cannot say but I'm sure this too will pass away!