Kanu Needs Justice, not Sowore – By Elempe Dele

The plot is thickening, the cloud is gathering, Nigerians from all walks of lives have rolled up their sleeves and drawn up their shokotos, waiting for the joro jara order. October 20th will be the day all Nigerians, according to Mr. Omoyele Sowore, the self-styled activist, has planned to lead the march on Aso Rock demanding the release of Mr. Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB.

Kanu, the leader of the separatist group, who has vowed to restore the defunct Republic of Biafra which existed in the Eastern Region during the unfortunate Nigeria Civil War, was arrested in 2015 for treason, released and rearrested in 2021.

Sowore made his planned protest known on his X handle on Thursday.According to him, the protest would be a “historic” march to the Aso Rock Villa in Abuja, while assuring that it would be conducted peacefully and legally to demand the release of the IPOB leader.

The activist wrote, “We now have a date for the historic #FreeNnamdiKanuNow protest march to the Aso Rock Villa in Abuja. It is October 20 at 7 am.”

In my opinion, what Kanu needs is justice, not Sowore’s call for the marching order on Aso Rock, which is not a court of competent jurisdiction. It will only be right and wise for Sowore to call or order that Kanu must be served his deserving justice. That if he is found innocent of the treason and terrorism charges against him by the Supreme Court, he must be allowed to join his family in the United Kingdom immediately, without delay.

Kanu is not a political prisoner even as some political opportunists want to sketch for public consumption.

The Federal Government recently rearraigned Kanu on seven counts of terrorism, belonging to a terrorist group, and illegal importation of radio equipments. Kanu has plead not guilty to all the charges.

Several government witnesses from the Department of State Services, DSS, have testified against Kanu in court. Broadcasting equipments collected from him during his rearrest were tendered in court by a witness. A witness also tendered video evidence where Kanu announced the creation of the Eastern Security Network, ESN, and where he threatened the president, vowing to destroy his properties in Lagos State.

The witness said investigation showed that Kanu’s broadcasts are directly connected to the violence and killings in the South East where he comes from. The witness claimed Ahmed Gulak was killed because he disobeyed the sit-at-home order Kanu gave on the 30th of that month – the day penciled down as Biafra Remembrance Day.

In defence, Kanu’s lawyer tendered a video evidence showing Imo State Governor claiming IPOB was not responsible for the killings in the East, and another showing where TY Danjuma admonishing people to stand up to defend themselves from killers.

Some of the evidence tendered by the DSS before the Justice Omotosho were not admissible because they went against the Evidence Act, according to the judge.

There were other evidence from the DSS which were tendered before the court, and cross-examinations to puncture the evidence by lawyers to Kanu. For example, the DSS claimed one of the IPOB/ESN commander arrested confessed that Kanu ordered them to bury one Mr. Ikonso killed by security agents with two thousand human heads but as at the time of arrest, they were only able to get three hundred heads.

The lead defence council to Kanu, Mr. Kanu Agabi, told the court they would file no-case submission during this hearing since the prosecutor had rested its case.

So it would have been more dignifying, reflective and proper for Sowore to be calling for Kanu to get justice rather than to be released without trial. According to the claims of the DSS, ordinary people from the East were killed based on the orders of Kanu, which he made via broadcast, especially those who violated his sit-at-home orders. It is also alleged that security agents were attacked and killed based on his orders. That during the EndSars Protest, Kanu made broadcast where he encouraged rioters to burn down Federal Government properties, which led to economic loss.

These allegations are grave, they cannot be suppressed by political opportunists or activists or else it will amount to spitting on the graves of those who were killed and lives damaged by these alleged orders.

“I will leave you with a poem I wrote listening to the psychological ordeal of one victim:

…but I Cannot Go

I want to go back home
But I cannot go
Native strangers
Have taken over
Our ancestral land
Where my placenta
Was committed to mother earth

I want to go back home
But I cannot go
Waifs and strays fingering udders of rattling guns
Sparking fire-flies at night
Killing at sight

I want to go home
But I cannot go
I am crying from a strange house
From the dark dreary roads
I have travelled
Yet no road leads to where I took my first staggering steps

I want to go home
But I cannot go
Emeka, you are gone
Bullets pieced through your dying voice, haunting my lost memory
You are beckoning from the estate of the dead

I want to go home
But I cannot go
Ifeanyi, I am calling you to return from where no one ever returns
They danced over your unmarked catacomb
Illicit drugs and hard drinks
Dancing in their heads

I want to go home
But I cannot go
The Zulu and Akan people no longer welcome me
And I feel unwanted
I walk the street I have always lived
My shop has been torn down, it is no longer standing erect like libraries

I want to go home
But I cannot go
Memories beats me up
Like waves slapping the sea with strong arms of emotions
The pain chokes me lumping my throat with longing desire of my homeland
It is the bubbling sorrow deep inside me that move my warm tears, tears from cold comfort here

Adaeze, when you get there
Dont show grandma your lacerated throat
Dont tell her the home has been razed down
Just tell her the ancestral grounding stone fell and shattered into pieces
Tell her broken hearts cannot be mended
Obinna, even you, don’t tell grandpa his lazy chair got burnt, I know he now looks foreign but he will cry the fire cry, his eyes dark as raven

Adaku, your blood is still fresh on the red sands of Okigwe
I can still feel the soil between your fingers as you try to cling to earth earth’s

I am the lost victim
Not you Chibuike
Your soul is at rest
Your icy hands still
And where you lay is the barren spot of hopelessness

I am the victim
Swimming back to memories
Basking in pain
Epilogue of souls departed

I am the victim left abroad
I am not the one who escaped
I am the one who died travelling in dreams
I am the one who died once, and is dying again
I have died a thousand times

I have no name
I am the one who betrayed death when they came looking for us, Adamma
I am the one who ran
But you couldn’t
They clapped you with lightening smokes from red ragged guns
And there you lay ice cold
And there your dreams took flight

I am memory
Puncturing pains like celestial whispers where sounds no longer return

I am the old friend waiting for the smell of the wet earth where the scent of our home used to be
Birds soft taken songs
Brushing the air beyond the old fence where grandpa was buried

I want to go home
But I cannot go
The path is overgrown with memories
Heavy steps belonging to those native strangers

The road ahead of me no longer feels the same And the former sounds of laughter from the past are echoed in the chambers of grief

I mean that home where I was raised as a child, watching enemies floating away in the river
Rippled in ponds
The sun gently knowing when to go
Mist in the morning
Air brushing the forest humming sweet sounds
Cock grow at dawn
Grandma’s creaking door
Opening delight
Her song like the embrace of a stepmother
The tall baobab tree
Where witches and wizards meet at night
The songs and stories I will never forget, the musics I will never remember
I am no longer the captain of my memories
Nor guardian of old dreams
I see faces passing and passing my memory of recognition
Achike, Ifunaya, Achebe, Ngozi, Nnamani, Akachukwu…I remember the smiles, they belong somewhere in the past now
The weight is heavy
Like the cursed grinding stone

Tonight I will sleep under
The naked sky
Looking into the smiles of the cloud
Thinking I want to go home
But I cannot go

Elempe Dele
Is a journalist, poet, author(Season of Imperfection) and social critic.