Once Bitten: Why Nigeria’s Security Agencies Must Be Wary of Nnamdi Kanu’s Ill-Health Antics
By Onyema Nwabueze from Imo State
It is almost a decade from October 2015 when Nnamdi Kanu arrived Lagos from the UK to personally oversee what would become the devastation and desecration of the entire South-East in a manner unprecedented since the civil war, in his misguided and dubious separatist agenda. This was after several years of spurning inciteful anti-State propaganda from his diaspora Radio Biafra. Security agencies had swiftly rounded him up and quickly commenced his trial for terrorism and treasonable felony among other charges at the Federal High Court Abuja.
Considering the weight of the charges against him, it was almost impossible to imagine that he would be released on bail. However, his legal team would pull the old trick of failing health and need for urgent medical attention outside of what the Federal Government through the DSS could provide him. And so, in April 2017, the trio of Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, Ben El-Shalom – a Jewish leader and Tochukwu Uchendu, an Abuja-based businessman and accountant, signed off on a N100 million bail bond for Nnamdi Kanu.
No sooner had his bail bond been perfected when the IPOB leader confirmed the fears that he had no intentions of keeping to the terms of the bail. The military would subsequently invade his Umuahia residence in September, 2017 in a failed bid to re-arrest him as he effectively jumped bail and fled both Umuahia and Nigeria to an unknown destination.
From his hiding, Kanu resumed his characteristic incendiary propaganda against the Federal Government and instigated widespread resistance to constituted authorities across the South-East. In December 2020, he mobilised the launch of the “Eastern Security Network” (ESN), the armed wing of IPOB to strengthen the group’s offensive capability. The ESN would go ahead to execute daring attacks on security agencies including the invasion of Owerri Prisons in April, 2021 during which over 1,800 prisoners were freed.
The degeneration of security in the South-East prompted renewed efforts by the FG to apprehend the mastermind-in-chief of the lawlessness in the region. Nigerians then woke up to the news of his arrest in June 2021 following an extradition process that traversed Ethiopia and Kenya. The DSS, which retained custody of the apprehended fugitive, resumed his trial amidst pushbacks and technicalities by the defence counsel. Apparently frustrated by their inability to extract another release for their client, Nnamdi Kanu’s defence team has again fallen back to its old tricks with spurious claims of his failing health.
The debate about whether or not the DSS can cater to the medical needs of Kanu is unnecessary and is defeated by precedence. Former NSA, Sambo Dasuki, was in DSS custody from December 2015 to December 2019. Not as many controversies trailed the handling of his health or general wellbeing in the four years of his detention. Similar high-profile suspects have been held at various DSS facilities across the country without much ado that has become typical with Nnamdi Kanu and his cohorts. It would be an easy bet to forecast that Nnamdi Kanu will once more slip off the radar of security agencies if the DSS or indeed, the Judiciary, falls again for his rehashed tricks.
And while the security situation in the South-East still leaves much to be desired, only a politically negotiated or judicially procured release of Kanu can guarantee a gradual restoration of peace in the region. Otherwise, a manipulated escape and evasion of justice as being orchestrated by IPOB apologists will invariably have Kanu relapsing into exploiting his hypnotic control of gullible and disgruntled Igbos to revive his separatist agitation. The costs are already too dear for Ndi Igbo who now endure the ignominy of carrying out sundry traditional and cultural rites away from home asides the unquantifiable economic loss from perennial Monday sit-at-home orders and unbridled criminality and theft by IPOB brigands. It could be worse.
