This morning I woke up with a lot of questions running through my mind about the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Okwu Kanu:
How is it going with Mazi at the dungeon of DSS prison in Abuja?
Does anyone, including the millions of followers who sang Kanu into his current predicament still spare a thought for Kanu?
What about those Kanu, whether rightly or wrongly, believed he was fighting for?
Have Ndi Igbo in their current love and quest for the presidency, abandoned Kanu or is the current presidential quest a tactical move to secure Kanu’s release?
Are Ndi Igbo in their current opinion capable of making such tactical and strategic move?
What if the shot at the presidency fails?
What does the prospect of such failure portend for Kanu and his incarceration?
Will Ndi Igbo upon such failure strike a deal a bargain with whosoever wins the presidential election to secure Kanu’s release?
What about using Kanu’s release to bargain for Igbo votes or would doing that be too much a sacrifice to make for Kanu?
Has Kanu himself not made enough sacrifices for Ndi Igbo or have Ndi Igbo suddenly turned around to see Kanu as an opportunist who used the agitation for Biafra to enrich or make himself popular?
What does all this say about the quest for Biafra?
Doesn’t it simply make the agitation a bargaining tool which Ndi Igbo are simply using to gain relevance in Nigerian politics?
If this is true, then are Ndi Igbo being fair to other Nigerians or are they doing this because they believed the north used Boko Haram insurgency to get Mohammadu Buhari into power?
What about the thousands or perhaps millions who lost their lives in the latest struggle for the restoration of the sovereign state of Biafra?
Have these people died in vain or did they die just to make Obi, a man they accused of murdering and disposing the body of thousands of their members into the Ezu River president?
If the latest move to secure the presidency, release Kanu from the DSS and then enter into a negotiated settlement with the agitators fail, what will be the implication for Ndi Igbo and the struggle for Biafra?
Will the agitators return to their trenches in a renewed push for Biafra?
If this happens, what will be the consequence for the betterment of Nigeria and very importantly, the security of Igbo land?
In all this, what exactly does Ndi Igbo want: Biafra or a united, just, secure and prosperous Nigeria?
Is the great Igbo nation in crisis of identity or would Ndi Igbo like the Germans who fought Europe but later turned around to embrace the EU also turn around to embrace one Nigeria?
And the question goes on and on!
However, no matter what your answers are to these questions, one thing is inescapable:
whether Ndi Igbo eventually choose to abandon Kanu or not, Kanu’s stance on Nigeria and the inescapable questions he raised about the treatment of Ndi Igbo in Nigeria stand at the centre of Igbo crisis of identity and Nigeria’s predicament.
In other words, whether Ndi Igbo choose to address this question now or later, what is certain is that the question must one way or another be addressed, irrespective of who wins the forthcoming presidential election. It is a question that not even Obi’s presidency can wash away.
