By Onwuasoanya FCC Jones, PhD
Nnamdi Kanu’s imprisonment may be too little too late, as it does not free the minds of millions of his victims from the poisons of hate, falsehood and xenophobia which he infested them with. Igbo leaders who sincerely seek peace and stability in the Southeast must invest in deradicalising the minds of these victims or risk something more destructive than Nnamdi Kanu.
When Nnamdi Kanu started spreading his hateful rhetoric, I wrote many essays warning about the danger he poses with such hateful speeches. I was dismissed as one who didn’t know much. I can remember a particular essay I wrote urging Igbo leaders to stop playing the ostrich. I warned that if Igbo political, religious and academic elites continue to condone or make excuses for Nnamdi Kanu and his IPOB, things would get dangerous and more violent than they ever imagined.
I am not going to gloat that my predictions have come to pass, but I feel sad and disappointed that after more than six years of unprecedented destruction, deaths and political relegation caused by Nnamdi Kanu, our political leaders are still playing the ostrich. Many of them are denying the obvious diagnosis of cancer on the Igbo body polity, believing that their denial of it would somehow cure it, but this won’t happen. The more you ignore a cancer diagnosis, the more it metastasize.
Before now, one could go to bed assured that the youths of the Southeast population are not prone to easy radicalisation. We used to pride ourselves as the most republican ethnic group in Nigeria. But that has changed. Nnamdi Kanu has successfully turned the Southeast to the Middle East of the Southern region. We have an unpredictable population of very angry and highly radicalised people, who are intolerant of differing political and religious opinions.
Nnamdi Kanu incited an apoplectic, hateful and xenophobic mob who sees every Fulani person as an enemy, and who feels, that Nigeria hates the Igbos, and that the Igbo has nothing to benefit from Nigeria. Nnamdi Kanu called out the Yorubas, he insulted our Ijaw brothers, he derided the Hausas. He has infested the minds of a dangerous number of our people with incurable hate and false beliefs.
The Igbo elite who pretend to want a restoration of peace by clamouring for Nnamdi Kanu’s release should rather invest resources into a deradicalisation programme for the Southeast population, else, they would deepen the destruction and political relegation of the Southeast, because the level of hate fueled by misinformation that is prevalent among Igbos is alarming.
May Alaigbo Heal!