Releasing Nnamdi Kanu without referendum wont end agitation in Southeast –Obidigbo

Elder statesman, Chike Obidigbo has warned politicians, especially those from the Southeast, against further compounding the travails of the Leader of Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu.

He regretted that some Igbo political elites are going about for the release of the embattled IPOB leader the wrong way, stressing that the overzealous politicians are acting out of ignorance and mostly in self aggrandizement.

According to the elder statesman, the issues around Kanu and his leadership of IPOB are not easy as politicians think, adding that releasing Kanu without granting referendum to IPOB may not address the secessionist agitation or the crisis in the zone.

In a statement made available to newsmen yesterday, Obidigbo, who is the President of Osisioma Foundation, noted that the delicate nature of Kanus incarceration requires quiet diplomacy to achieve political solution, without politicising his release, the way they are going about it.

While identifying the salient complications around the IPOB leaders forceful rendition and consequent incarceration, the Anambra-born elder statesman said Britains loud silence about Kanus predicament raises a large red flag.

Parts of the statement read: I woke up this morning with a very heavy heart. I am constrained to say that I am not happy with the way and manner our political elites are going about their request for the release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.

The sense I make of the cheap scramble by Igbo politicians to be identified in the growing calls for Mazi Nnamdi Kanus freedom from prolonged and unjust incarceration is that they are merely playing to the gallery.

It is obvious that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is not entirely the one holding Nnamdi Kanu. It was not even former President Muhammadu Buhari nor his erstwhile Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami SAN. All the AGFs, including the current one are mere legal officers for the government.

However, Kanus matter is a security issue, which requires the involvement of the National Security Adviser (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu. The President may not have absolute authority to release Kanu although, he has the power to influence things if he so desires.

Obidigbo disclosed that the other powerful elephant in the room blocking Nnamdi Kanus freedom is the British Government, stressing that Kanu acted against British economic interest in Nigeria.

He remarked that the British economic interest, which Kanus agitation was negatively affecting, has been enriching the government and people of Britain, over several centuries, saying that although the fact is well known to most Nigerian elites, they simply prefer to remain pretentious.

Everything that Kanu said or did were done in Britain, being a British citizen. But, they could not afford to arrest him on British soil, because of obvious and potential backlash.

What Britain did was to join in the international conspiracy to lure Kanu to Kenya, knowing that Africans lack integrity and respect for laws. They got him kidnapped in Kenya and forcibly and illegally renditioned to Nigeria. They could not have done that in any other part of the world, outside of Africa, without extreme repercussions. It is only on African soil that such illegality can take place and his captors knew that much, and took advantage of it.

So, the British High Commissioner in Nigeria showed no interest, at least speaking up against the violent kidnap and rendition of her citizen. All the Embassy was interested was to hear Kanu renounce his dream of a Biafra, probably with an undertaken never to support any such agitation in future, he stated.

The Industrialist said Britains double standards and hypocrisy betrays their long term destabilising designs against Nigerias socio-economic prosperity and independence.

He stated: Here was the same Britain that in 1984 frustrated the forceful abduction and return to Nigeria of Alhaji Umaru Dikko, who was not even a British citizen at the time, but merely an asylum seeker in Britain.

Britain continues to see Nigeria as their fertile farm land for free economic exploitation and political manipulation. They have no wish to relax their stranglehold, not now, not in the near future. So anything or anyone posing as a threat to her economic interests in Nigeria, automatically becomes their sworn enemy.

The industrialist expressed relief that African youths are gradually waking up to challenge all the existing frustrations, deprivations and blatant exclusion arrayed against them from enjoying the natural endowments of their own countries.