Dan Nwanyanwu is a former presidential candidate and the National Chairman of Zenith Labour Party (ZLP). In this interview monitored on Channels Television by FELIX NWANERI, he speaks on the #FreeNnamdiKanuNow protest and how the matter can be resolved, among other issues
The free Nnamdi Kanu protest and agitation for the Federal Government to release him. How do you view it?
It is a legitimate demand and I support the protest. Many well-meaning Nigerians are in support of the protest and my position on this has been clear even from when President Buhari forcefully took him away from Kenya. As far as I’m concerned, Nnamd Kanu did not do anything that will warrant his detention for five years. There is no evidence to show that he killed anybody. There’s no evidence to show that he carried arms.
That’s for the court to determine…
But the courts have been keeping somebody for five years and they have not been able to try him.
Is that illegitimate?
Of course! Hasn’t the court decided on this matter when it came to the issue of his bail before the Court of Appeal? He was discharged and acquitted.
So, as far as I’m concerned, like most Nigerians, I am not persuaded in any manner with what is going on in the courts and I will not also be persuaded with whatever judgement, either way that comes out from the court because there is a deliberate plot to keep him in detention. I said so even when President Muhammadu Buhari was in office. There are people who have committed heinous crimes in this country.
They have murdered people; they have kidnapped people, they have raped women, they have killed children and have done all sorts of things. There are also people aiding and abetting them. There are people who have gone to their domains talking with them.
We are aware of helicopters dropping food and ammunitions in the bush, which of course, our security personnel have the capacity to track. Nnamdi Kanu did not do any of these things but he’s in detention. What was the cause? I told President Buhari that ‘it was because of the ancient hatred you have against the Igbos.’
I said this to President Buhari when he was in office, and my position has not changed. That was why he kept Nnamdi Kanu there. If he is from another tribe, he will not be there.
Are you dispassionate about this or you are saying that because you are of the same ethnic extraction with Nnamdi Kanu because there are those who don’t have the same view about the situation in the South-East?
Whether people agree with me or not; what I’m saying is that I stated my position to a sitting president. You know those who love you, and you also know those who hate you. It’s not because I’m Igbo. I would have taken the same position if a Yoruba man or Fulani man was involved because my patriotism has no limitations.
What do you think the government of the day which felt that a region consisting of five states is under consistent attack and insecure based on the action and the statement of one man could have done differently?
President Bola Tinubu did not cause this problem; he inherited it. President Tinubu has no hand in the detention of Nnamdi Kanu but what is curious is why he has not taken steps to get him out. He has no hand. He didn’t take him there.
As a lawyer, how easy would that be to establish a non prosequitur case on a matter of national security?
What is the national security? These are things that people manufacture to justify their positions. Nnamdi Kanu is facing one of the highest criminal offences….
If they have decided not to release Nnamdi Kanu, they should take him to the Eagle Square and use him for barbecue and let his enemies come and eat from the meat, so that we can close this matter permanently
And that is what?
Terrorism; that’s the charge against him… Can you define terrorism and all those people that did all the things I mentioned; none was charged of terrorism. I have explained to you that Nnamdi Kanu has the right to peacefully demand for anything for his people. I am not saying this because I’m from the South-East.
And that was why I said the President Tinubu should get him out of detention. Yes, the President has no hand in the matter but he is in a position to rectify it because he knows the truth. But the question is: Why has he not done so? You see, some people are saying don’t release him, it will misbalance this or misbalance that.
The truth is that Nnamdi Kanu, as we said that time to President Buhari, go and discuss with Kanu, you don’t have to hound him in this manner. Look at what is happening now. He did not talk to anybody. If he was outside, they will say he sponsored people to protest on his behalf.
Omoyele Sowore, who’s taking this thing on his own now based on his struggles, is not even Igbo. We should forget about all these mundane issues and considerations. What is bad is bad. What is not good must be condemned no matter who is involved. Yes, we agree there are some people in the SouthEast who do not want Nnamdi Kanu out. There are people like that and I can say it authoritatively.
Who are these people?
They are some top businessmen who are involved in oil and all that. There are also some top politicians who are of the view, and which is correct, that if Nnamdi Kanu comes out today, their political careers will come to an end permanently without him saying a word. Nnamdi Kanu is loved by the people.
It’s like when they were chasing Governor Sim Fubara of Rivers State; you heard me say to President Tinubu, if the issue is about 2027, the person to do business with is Fubara. You see what is happening there now; the people love him and they love him. Nnamdi Kanu’s support is organic; he doesn’t need to talk to anybody.
I am sure that is the pressure that the President is having but the President is the number one citizen, he’s the president of Nigeria and he’s the only person that can say stop and it will stop. You don’t have to take everything that everybody puts to you hook line and sinker.
When the issue of insecurity started in the South-East; they raided the prison, he came out to say no, this was not our deeds, those people were imported and the security people came back to realize this but what happened next. Because they have been exposed, they decided to recruit urchins, poorly educated people, people who are not skilled and started training them.
Are you an Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) apologist?
I don’t expect you to come that because you know that I believe in Nigeria.
I asked the question because you might have sympathy for the Biafran struggle, which is what IPOP stands for…
I am an open book. You will always know where I am. I believe you know the history of IPOP.
There are those who say that it started with peaceful intentions about the agitation of Biafra… What brought up IPOP? You have a region that has been marginalised. They’ve been crying over marginalisation. It worsened during the time of President Buhari. President Tinubu has tried to do one or two things by putting some infrastructure there.
You say you don’t like me. You say you don’t want me. Okay, let me to go home, you say I will not go. One must give way. It’s either you bring me to the centre or you let me go. We should stop pretending in this country.
What is marginalisation? Can you mention one thing in practical terms?
There is no federal presence in the South-East. The little we are having now is under President Tinubu. There are no good roads no infrastructure.
President Buhari borrowed money to build rails up to Niger, another country but none crossed the South-East and we will be part and parcel of the loan’s repayment. Is that justice? So, they have the right to protest because you can’t flog a child and stop the child from crying.
What would have been the best way to handle the situation?
The best way is for President Tinubu to sit down, look at the whole thing, find a way to balance these things and bring Nnamdi Kanu out.
Nobody else can do that apart from the President. If you subdue this one, expect it again and again and again. You cannot run away from it. Nnamdi Kanu committed no crime. He did not kill anybody. He did not take up arms.
It’s not for you to decide because the matter is in court…
The truth is naked.
You cannot say he did nothing when the court is still assessing and trying the matter…
It will get to this point in this country, when people will stop listening to what you’re talking about. Let me tell you about an experience I had. In 1992, I was at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) and part of the programs in NIPSS is you have local tours, African tours and outside tour. My group went to Kano, Imo, Cameroon and Brazil.
When we got to Cameroon, the Chief of Army Staff was given an instruction by President Paul Biya to do certain things but he said: ‘Mr. President, this order is illegal.
I will not obey it and I’m ready to take the consequences.’ Unless we redress the judiciary and what they are doing to Nigerian people, it will get to a point in this country that Nigerian people will start taking the laws into their hands.
Nnamdi Kanu is still in detention and the matter is before the court, so it is subjudice for you to determine for the court on television…
You can do whatever you like but I have the right to say that I don’t believe in what you’re doing. It is my inalienable right. You can even sentence me for that. You can see that everything has been compromised in this country and nobody can get justice.
Is it in election matters or others and that’s why there’s no development. People are no longer having confidence in what should have given them the hope that tomorrow will be better. Nnamdi Kanu’s case is a case that President Tinubu must address because all these things that are happening today are not necessary.
How do you think the President can address it; should it be political or judicial?
You see, even during the time of President Buhari, leaders of thought in Igbo land met him on this issue but dismissed them, saying that the matter is in court.
Governors of the five states of the South-East, led by Hope Uzodimma, whom they accusing erroneously, have equally made moves. People don’t know the efforts these people are making to get Nnamdi Kanu out.
But you see people write all sorts of nonsense on the social media, claiming that the governors have told the President not to release him. If they have decided not to release Nnamdi Kanu, they should take him to the Eagle Square and use him for barbecue and let his enemies come and eat from the meat, so that we can close this matter permanently.
If you were President Tinubu and you decide to release him, how would you go about it?
I will call Igbo leaders and the governors, file non prosequitur and hand over Nnamdi Kanu to them.
Can these leaders control him?
He didn’t fall from the sky. You and I know that even a mad man does have people he listens to. He did not do anything to deserve all this. If not for the good governor we have in the South-East at the moment, nothing will work there. We have the best governors in the region now I I’m saying it without hesitation.
They are working; if not, some people have frustrated the economy of the place. In one year, we lost about N7 trillion but the governors are doing their best to put infrastructure and to empower the people. We are people that work hard. People should stop hating us. The Igbo man is the easiest person to deal with if you have his code.
What is the code of the Igbo man?
It’s not for the public.
Will Igbo presidency be a solution to this problem?
That is not what we are saying, and don’t misjudge me to say that I say we don’t need presidency. The Igbo man, once you are fair to him, is not interested in who is at the top. But it has come to the point that they are saying that others have gotten the presidency twice or more and they have not gotten it even once.
Do you think that we need a national reconciliation conference where the issues of Igbo land and the civil war and its aftermath needs to be addressed frontally?
I was a member of the National Conference in 2014. If President Buhari had taken the report of that conference; 620 recommendations unanimously passed, we wouldn’t be where we are today. President Tinubu would have been concentrating on advancing on that.
But President Tinubu came and started from where Jonathan stopped to clean all the rubbish that was left behind including the bastardization of the economy. I’m not speaking for him but I’m a realist and that is the truth. The man met a battered and destroyed economy.
