Ojukwu Vs Kanu: The Real Hero And The Coward With Empty Braggadocio

What Nnamdi Kanu's Escape Reminds Us About Biafra 1 & Emeka Odimegwu

Ojukwu The Great



At Least Ojukwu Walks Into Talk Of War While Coward Kanu Flees On Hearing Sound

Of Guns



The secessionist insurrection of the Indigenous

Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) took a dramatic turn in

the week ended Saturday, September 23,

during which the secessionist group was

proscribed and its erstwhile boastful leader,

Nnamdi Kanu, took to his heels when

confronted with fired up soldiers. Reminds you

of Biafra 1 – Emeka Odimegwu Ojukwu – who

also went on the lam when federal troops

closed in on him back in January 1970? At least,

Ojukwu walked the talk of war, but this wet

pants peed on only hearing the sound of guns!

So much for the empty braggadocio. Also

during the week, there was an international

angle to the secessionist agitation as the

federal government decided to name two

countries – Britain and France – as

collaborators in IPOB's partitioning agenda.

Minister of Information, Culture and Tourism,

Lai Mohammed, told the nation on Wednesday,

September 20, how Britain and France have

been tacitly complicit with IPOB in its

destabilization of Nigeria. Britain, stated the

minister, continues to tolerate Radio Biafra's

hate and incendiary broadcasts from London

while France is said to be the financial clearing

house of IPOB from where funds flow to the

secessionist group. The minister had asserted:

"Let me tell you, the financial headquarters (of

IPOB) is in France, we know" and also posed a

rhetorical question: "Who does not know that

IPOB internal radio is located in London?"

Mohammed explained how Britain had been

frustrating Nigeria's diplomatic efforts with the

British authorities to shut down the pirate

radio station only to be given the nebulous

excuse of freedom of expression. He had

wondered: "If we have a person in Nigeria

openly soliciting arms to come and fight in the

UK, what would you think of it. Would you

consider that freedom of expression? ". The

minister implied that the two countries have

been engaged in semantics or what I would call

diplomatic jousting. Minister Mohammed

spoke of "knotty diplomatic issues which you

need to skip" only to add in a double talk "I

don't want any diplomatic row". Of course, the

minister knew the charges against the two

countries would spark diplomatic skirmishes,

perhaps low level, for now.

Well, these are trying times in Nigeria and

nationalist fervour demands that the country

must be ready to ruffle some diplomatic nests

in defence of the sanctity of her territorial

integrity and sovereignty. There is reciprocity

in diplomatic relations. We need to remember

that Britain and France have played ignoble

roles in the international arena in recent times

under the self-serving subterfuge called

'International Community'.

Britain followed the United States to declare

war on Iraq on the lie that Iraqi President,

Saddam Hussein, had 'weapons of mass

destruction' which must be neutralized. They

ended up destroying that country and got its

president hanged, as a rub in. Yet, Tony Blair,

the then British Prime Minister, who stridently

orchestrated Gulf War 11 could still face the

world and declare that he had no apology for

the destruction of Iraq, a country that has not

known peace since.

Such brazenness! Such denial of criminal

culpability by a British Prime Minister who had

made a past time of pillorying President Robert

Mugabe of Zimbabwe whose main offence was

winning re-elections in his country. Apparently,

Blair, with imperialist hang-over, wanted a

regime change in Zimbabwe but met more

than his match in President Mugabe, who once

derisively called him Tony b-Liar. The old

Zimbabwean war horse was right, Tony Blair

lied on Iraq. So, if Britain condoned the Iraqi

war, why is the Nigerian government peeved

by the British High Commission's statement

condoning Radio Biafra's hate and inciting

broadcasts on the puerile doctrine of freedom

of expression? The same Britain that shut down

the internet when youths went on rampage in

London on the excuse that they were using it to

network and mobilize others for the riot.

Talk of diplomatic duplicity or double standard.

The immediate past British Prime Minister,

chubby boy, David Cameron, in an expansive

mood, once described Nigeria as a fantastically

corrupt country, another brazenness from a

country that is fantastically a receiver of stolen

funds, being the financial capital of the world,

both legitimate and illicit. Well, it was good

riddance, as the political gambler fantastically

lost the Brexit vote that saw to his exit from

10, Downing Street, the Prime Minister's

official residence.

As for France, it supported Biafra 1 and

facilitated Emeka Ojukwu's exile in Ivory Coast,

her satellite nation, so, it should be no surprise

that it is the financial clearing house for IPOB,

the leading agent for Biafra 11. France was

indicted in the Rwanda Genocide of 1994, in

which an estimated 800,000 Tutsis lost their

lives, for being complicit with the then Hutu-

led government. France also led the Western

onslaught on Libya that saw the killing of Libyan

leader, Muamar Gaddafi.

In 2011, France, brazenly thwarted the will of

the Ivorian people, when under the cover of

'International Community' mandate, it provided

military support for a candidate, Alassane

Quattara, in Cote D'Ivoire's disputed

presidential election conflict to capture a sitting

African President, Laurent Gbagbo! Gbagbo had

won the majority vote in the main election and

was pronounced winner of the re-run election

by the country's Constitutional Court only for

the UN Representative in Cote D'Ivoire to

assume the role of electoral commission to

declare Quattara as the winner! Sadly, Nigeria's

naïve President Goodluck Jonathan, as ECOWAS

leader, had endorsed the UN envoy's verdict,

and consequent UN mandate, which accorded

French military partisan involvement a dubious

legitimacy. Cote D'Ivoire is France's milking

cow, a situation President Gbagbo had ended,

so the empire struck back. With Quattara, who

is married to a French woman, in charge,

France has returned to gravy train in Cote

D'Ivoire while President Gbagbo languishes in

detention at The Hague facing criminal charges

at the International Court of Justice. The West

sent Gbagbo to jail for a domestic conflict

arising from an election dispute, but Tony Blair

still struts around, a free man. Talk of the

hypocrisy of the 'International Community'!

Nigeria's political leadership should be under

no illusion about any affectionate love from

Britain or France, and, by extension, western

countries. Britain and France are yesterday's

countries, over whose empires the sun has set,

now playing a fickle third fiddle in international

power relations and struggling for residual

relevance in Africa. Nigeria, on the other hand,

is a country of the future with great potentials

which some vested interests may not want

manifested being a threat to their hegemonic

hold. You see, no country in Europe has

Nigeria's landmass, natural resources or

population. According to worldometers.info

(2017) the combined population of Britain (66.2

million) and France (64.9 million) is 131.1

million compared to Nigeria's 192.06 million

while the combined landmass of Britain and

France is 789,487 sq km as against Nigeria's

910,770 sq km. Given these endowments plus

high calibre human capital, the prospects of

Nigeria as the great Black Hope is bright. We

can now begin to understand why many

countries would have dubious designs on

Nigeria and would not be averse to its

disintegration.