Branding: Nnamdi Kanu’s British citizenship and the Biafra story

Nnamdi Kanu is that effusive man championing the now grossly misunderstood, nay, misdirected Biafran cause. He is eloquent for the wrong reasons, outspoken for the worse.

It’s been 46 years since the end of the Civil War that first accentuated the agitation for self-determination by the Igbos and the other constituent tribes of the then Eastern region of Nigeria. Maybe it will be unfair to assume all Igbos supported that agitation then, or that they do today.

The 1967 adventure was led by a fully-branded, pure Igbo man, the late lion-hearted Emeka Odimegwu-Ojukwu, the Ikemba Nnewi. Ojukwu, an Igbo man by all description, classification and understanding, felt obliged; as the Military governor of the Eastern region of Nigeria, the leadership was thrust upon him, more like, and out of sheer necessity, he had to lead “his people’ out of the bondage Nigeria represented to them.

For the records, Ojukwu was not part of the events that led to any of both 1966 coups, although he was miffed by the anti-Igbo sentiments that followed. But he led them well, until the Biafran military resistance capitulated and he fled to Cote d’Ivoire before Philip Effiong eventually surrendered to the Nigerian Federation. Even at that, he never altered his citizenship, even when he had all the opportunity to do so.

The Branding of Kanu

In accordance with the tenets of Branding, Kanu used the Biafran flag, the leading Biafran language of Igbo, and other publicity stunts to propagate his cause and make us all associate him with Biafra, with the Biafran dream, the Biafran cause, positioning himself to take up a plum role, in the event.

By his name, by his pronouncements, by his engagement, Kanu branded himself undoubtedly a ‘Biafran’. And rightly so, ‘Biafrans’ accepted him as one of their own, even ‘submitting’ to his ‘leadership’. So, who can be more Biafran that its leader?

And just as he wished it, the world has identified him with Biafra, more than with anything else in his 46-year-old life. To take the branding further, none of his names appears anything different from a ‘Biafran’ name. The Nwannekaenyi Nnamdi Okwu Kanu that was born in Isiama Afara, Abia State, to a royal father, HRM Eze Israel Okwu Kanu, and who had his Primary, Secondary and University education in Abia and Enugu States, is quite a fitting and fully-branded ‘Biafran citizen’, you’d agree.

With the foregoing efforts, Kanu had every right and reason to be branded an Indigenous Person of Biafra. But unfortunately, with so little a hassle, he capitulates and suddenly remembers his British citizenship. What a leader!

A leader should be ready for whatever comes in the course of championing a cause. A leader doesn’t chicken-out midway or turn his back on his people. The act of denouncing his Biafranness contradicts all the now famous rhetoric on his London-based ‘Radio Biafra’. Imagine him abandoning ‘his people’ with no wink!

So what will make a man with such conviction of self-determination for his people first go to seek, and acquire British citizenship? Is it lack of focus, or is he just an opportunist? No true leader abandons his people to their fate in the middle of a struggle. Martin Luther King did not, neither did Nelson Mandela, even with their lives on the line. And they never made as much inflammatory speeches as Kanu has done. Mandela spent 27 years in detention, yet Kanu couldn’t even spend 27 days before denouncing all he stood for, his citizenship, his Biafranness, his branding.

Apparently, Kanu represents nobody but himself. How quickly can you disown a people you profess to love so much, a people you vowed to lay down your life for, and a people you claim to be a part of. He appears confused on where to pitch his loyalty between his ancestry and his citizenship. And he cannot be said to be a stakeholder in this quest.

Now, if a UK citizen speaks at the World Igbo Congress in far-away Los Angeles, and demands for guns and bullets to fight a legitimate government in Nigeria, we might as well be looking at an act of external aggression rather than an act of internal insurrection.

The Pope never denies his Catholicism, under any guise. Nnamdi Kanu should pave way for other true, pure, loyal, faithful ‘Biafran people’ to take up the mantle. Only a Catholic must be Pope!