Media entrepreneur and publisher, Dele Momodu, has escalated the national conversation around the detention of separatist leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, asserting that the root of the renewed Biafra agitation lies in the “continuing marginalisation” and “deprivation” faced by the Igbo ethnic group.
In a strongly worded social media post on Tuesday, Momodu, the publisher of Ovation International, shared a video of one of Kanu’s broadcasts, stating that he took the time to listen to the agitator’s critics only to find that they “only jumped to conclusions without proper analysis.”
Momodu linked the current separatist sentiment directly back to Nigeria’s troubled past: “The continuing marginalisation of the Igbo, and deprivation accorded some of the most energetic and vibrant brains in Africa, and globally, rekindled the BIAFRA sentiment.”
He argued that the agitation became “reignited, attractive and fanciful after the pogrom that wasted millions of lives and destroyed unimaginable properties in the 1960s and ’70s.”
Momodu, who clarified he does not support violence, warned that a political solution, not legal or military action, is urgently needed to address the crisis. “Attempts by enemies of KANU, including his own kinsmen, to exterminate him will never solve the problem. The IGBO struggle goes beyond legalese. It requires serious political reconfiguration, and urgently too.”
Momodu concluded by advising the government to adopt a more constructive approach, urging any “sensible government” to engage the resourceful South-East population in “productive engagements, instead of this rabid hatred,” and included the call-to-action #freennamdikanunow.
Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), has been in the custody of Nigeria’s Department of State Services (DSS) since his controversial repatriation from Kenya in June 2021.
His family and legal team have consistently referred to the transfer as an act of “extraordinary rendition,” a claim that a Kenyan High Court recently affirmed by declaring his transfer illegal and unconstitutional.
