Nnamdi Kanu is one of the most known names in Nigeria today. The mention of his name alone divides opinions and pitches any gathering into tents of supporters and haters. That is the kind of man Nnamdi Kanu is, you just have to love him or hate him – there are hardly neutrals.
Nnamdi Kanu is that one person who is in the news on an almost daily basis. It is hard to keep track of all the happenings around him and his newsworthy utterances. But the question of who is he and what are his stands and tactics is one that can be answered with a degree of certainty. Here’s all you need to know about him.
Background and age
Nnamdi Kanu was born Nnamdi Okwu Kanu on September 15 1967 at the time when the Biafran War was just a couple of weeks old. He was born in Isiama Afaraukwu in Ibeku, Umuahia. Nnamdi Kanu was nine days old when Biafran Capital City Enugu was captured and his hometown Umuahia became the new capital of Biafra.
Nnamdi grew up in the midst of war. With Umuahia the new capital, General Ojukwu, his commanders, policy-makers, and a lot of refugees made Umuahia home; this made the town a target and Nigerian forces continually shelled the town and carried out multiple air-raids. Surviving for Nnamdi Kanu was an achievement. 
Umuahia was captured on Christmas eve of 1969. Nnamdi Kanu’s family grabbed their two-year-old son and fled the town and joined the millions of other refugees on the run. The war ended three weeks later and Nnamdi Kanu grew up in the post-war hardship and discrimination that Igbos faced.
Nnamdi Kanu attended Library Avenue Primary School, Umuahia, and the famous Government College, Umuahia for his secondary education. For university, Nnamdi Kanu proceeded to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He didn’t finish as he saw an opportunity to leave for the UK and he grabbed it. He left.
Nnamdi Kanu is 53 years old.
Nnamdi Kanu’s citizenship
Nnamdi Kanu refers to himself as a Biafran, writing in an open letter to Buhari in July 2018 that “I am renouncing my Nigerian citizenship. I am not Nigerian. But as Biafra is not yet a recognized state Nnamdi Kanu is known in practice as a Nigerian and sometimes, internationally, as a British-Nigeria.
He became a British citizen by virtue of making the UK his long-term permanent residence. To cement this, he is married to a Sottish woman. But Nnamdi Kanu’s British citizenship is not something he is proud of admitting. But while in detention, in March 2016, it was convenient for him to admit this citizenship. Writing through his lawyers, he said, “It is repeating the obvious to state that our client is a full British citizen, by virtue of which position he is entitled to all Rights, Privileges, and Protection, guaranteed under the British Laws and conventions.”
See this renowned Igbo person who took up American citizenship
They went on to claim: “We are therefore constrained in the circumstance, to formally notify the British Government via this medium, of our well-informed reservations, and apprehension, that our client is undergoing persecution in the charge above referred, and deliberate design by the persecutors to frustrate every effort of the Defense team aimed at giving our client a fair trial.”
Out of prison, Nnamdi Kanu has maintained his distance with Britain and pour scorn on them whenever the opportunity presented itself, calling the UK “the greatest enemy of Nigeria” and accusing “the British government and some of its nationals” as the financiers of “terrorism with the people occupying Aso Rock and deceiving Nigerians that they mean well for them.”
Nnamdi Kanu calls himself a Jew and follows the tenets of Judaism. Being Jewish is not nationalism but it recognizes Israel as the motherland that must be honoured, supported, and defended because the motherland would open its arms to her children when they are in distress, hence Kanu’s running to Israel and making it a home when he was declared a fugitive and terrorist by the Nigerian government.
Nnamdi Kanu’s Biafran course
Nnamdi Kanu first broke into the limelight in 2009 when he launched Radio Biafra in London, United Kingdom. At first, the signal doesn’t reach Nigeria and supporters and sympathizers of Biafra relied on titbits brought home by UK returnees and reported with gusto in tabloids, and energized by propaganda. Nnamdi Kanu became somewhat of a legend even before he came back to Nigeria.
Nnamdi Kanu founded the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, in 2012. IPOB was founded one full year before All Progress Congress, APC. Nnamdi Kanu, Radio Biafra, and IPOB were a vociferous group under Jonathan’s government but they were largely ignored. Everything changed with the ascendency of Rtrd Gen. Buhari to the presidency.
In October 2015, Nnamdi Kanu was arrested in Ikeja, Lagos and moved to Abuja where he was tried for treason. His arrest was greeted with unrest and protests in all South Eastern states and South-south states of Rivers, Delta, and Cross Rivers. Multiple courts granted Nnamdi Kanu bail but he wasn’t released.
A politically-brokered agreement saw Nnamdi Kanu released in March 2017. He flaunted all the rules set for his bail and after a siege and shooting in his home in which Nnamdi Kanu’s parents were declared missing and scores were killed, Nnamdi Kanu disappeared.
FG declared IPOB a terrorist group while Southeast Governors declared it a criminal group and proscribed it. Nnamdi Kanu reemerged in October 2018, in Israel.
Nnamdi Kanu’s tactis
Nnamdi is a leader of a movement that seeks to gain independence for Baifra. He has been abused of been irrational, absive, and disruptive. Theere is a method to his madness which is geared toward the big picture.
i. Alienation of the eltes
One thing Nnamdi Kanu is consistent in doing is pissing off elites. He would call out and abuse governors, clergymen, military leaders and every one in a place of position or with a sphere of influence. To him, you are either a saboteur or a sellout if you are from the east, or an hater and enemy if you are from elsewhere.
It seems like he was not interested in building allies for his pursuit of an independent Biafran state. But this tactic is simple, by alienating “big men”, he was positioning himself as someone who was for the common man.
ii. Filling the leadership gap in the Southeast
There is a leadership gap in the Southeast which is not lost to the eye of even a cursorily observer. The Fulani herdsmen campaign of destruction in the Southeastern farmlands has been a cause of serious distress for many in Igboland, in Nigeria, and the diaspora.
But the state governments and representatives of the region in Abuja have not been clearcut in the best way to defend Igboland. The West started Amotekun but chairman of Southeast Governors Forum, Dave Umahi says it is unnecessary for a special security for the region.
The lack of developmental projects of Buhari’s government in the Southeast and his stauch refyusal to put Igbos in leadership positions in agencies, departments, and parastatals are striking. The leadership in the Southeast seem to be okay with this and would be found fighting each other than caving a common front.
Nnamdi Kanu showed leadership when he set up the Eastern Security Network, ESN, to defend Igboland.
iii. Being the mouthpiece of Igbos
Whenever there is an issue in Igboland or concerning a person of Igbo extraction Nnamdi Kanu is usually in the front of commenting on it, commending who was to be commended and denouncing who was to be denounced which was a majority of the time.
iv. Propaganda
Nnamdi Kanu once claimed on one of his Radio Biafra broadcasts that Nigeria was set up on propaganda and would be divided with propaganda.
It is, thus, unwise to take Nnamdi Kanu literally on a word by word, analysis by analysis basis. He would exaggerate, distort, embellish, sidestep reality, and even romance the fantastic. But this is not just for the sake of being dramatic. This is for a primary goal of keeping Biafra as a burning issue all the time, for the ultimate goal of gaining independence for Biafra.
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