By
‘Remi Oyeyemi
“All truth passes through three stages. First,
it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as
being self-evident.”
– Arthur Schopenhauer
“I’m for truth, mo matter who tells it. I’m for
justice, no matter who it’s for or against.”
– Malcom
X
With
trepidation, I have been watching the subtle descent into dictatorship by the
administration of Muhammadu Buhari. I have been watching with disgust President
Buhari’s war against freedom of speech. I am very concerned about desperate
attempts by President Buhari and his sentries to muzzle the voice of self
determination. I am very upset that a government of All Progressive Congress
that claimed to love freedom is engaged in deliberate subjugation of innocent
citizens who happens to have different views about the state of the polity.
*Nnamdi Kanu
I am very
concerned that an innocent man is being denied his freedom. I am scared that an
innocent man is being subjected to illegal detention. I am not comfortable that
an innocent man is being tried for desiring freedom for his people. I am very
disturbed that a non-violent man is being inflicted with unwarranted and
undeserved travails. I am worried that a lot of unwary observers who are not
properly schooled in the elementary tenets of democracy are vilifying an
innocent man.
Nnamdi Kanu
is an innocent man. He has not committed any crime to make him deserve the kind
of treatment being meted out to him. You do not have to like Nnamdi Kanu. You
do not have to agree with him or his desires for his people. But no one has the
right to deny him his fundamental human right to be free. No one has the right
to deny him the right to self-determine his destiny as he sees it or wants it.
No one has the right to shut him up because they do not like what he is saying
or because they feel threatened by what he is saying.
Mr. Kanu’s
exploits are known to all and sundry. His desire is to have a homeland
for his people. His desire is to free his people from the shackles of Nigeria . His
desire is to see his people get to the promised land of Biafra .
His dream is to see his people in control of their own destiny. His desire is
to have a say in who governs him and his people. His desire is to ensure that
no oligarchy or neo-oligarchic interests within the Ndigbo homeland is able to
hold his people in bondage. His desire is to be able to water the tree of
liberty for his people. There is nothing criminal in or about all this.
In all
this, he has only employed semantics. He has only deployed sophistry. He had
only appropriated the airwaves to be able to reach his people. He has not
acquired arms. He has not killed anybody. He has not declared any armed war
against anyone or organization. The only war he has ever declared is against
the continued subjugation, enslavement and denigration of his Igbo people. It
is a war of idea. A war of and for the minds of his people to see what he is
seeing, to desire what he is desiring, to dream what he is dreaming. And he is
doing that peacefully. He has been able to make his case to the majority of
Ndigbo and the youths of that nation who are indeed the future of Biafra .
He is
mobilizing his people to engage in the struggle to be free from their
enslavement by the Nigerian
State . He is making a
clarion call for his people to stand up for their rights and self determine
their destinies, or collective destiny. He has been innovative. He has been
peaceful. He has been determined. He has been methodical. He has been
deliberate. He has been consistent. He has persevered. And he is making
sacrifices. There is nothing criminal in or about this.