Dele Momodu: Silencing Nnamdi Kanu Can’t Solve Nigeria’s Problem

Dele Momodu, a media entrepreneur, has joined the growing calls for the release of Nnamdi Kanu, the imprisoned leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, or IPOB.

Momodu discussed Kanu’s protracted incarceration and the underlying causes of separatist sentiment in the South-East in a post posted on his X account on Tuesday, which contained one of the IPOB leader’s previous broadcasts.

He argued that the Igbo people’s years of marginalization and misery are the root cause of the Biafra movement.

Momodu writes, “Mazi Nnamdi Kanu made this thought-provoking broadcast in which he philosophized about the reasons he and his supporters became radicalized shortly before his abduction from Kenya by the Nigerian government.”

He criticized people who denounced Kanu and his supporters without taking into account the political and historical context of the rekindled unrest.

“I’ve listened to his detractors and found that most of them only made snap judgments without properly analyzing why Biafra agitation became attractive, fanciful, and rekindled after the pogrom that destroyed unimaginable properties and claimed millions of lives in the 1960s and 1970s,” he said.

He claimed that the Biafra sentiment was revived by the “continuing marginalization of the Igbo, and deprivation accorded some of the most energetic and vibrant brains in Africa, and globally.”

Momodu warned that trying to quiet or get rid of Kanu wouldn’t end the current situation.

“Kanu’s adversaries, including his own relatives, will never be able to eradicate him,” he declared.

He emphasized that rather than using repression, the Igbo struggle called for “serious political reconfiguration.”

“I will never condone violence. He continued, “But any sensible government will keep the South East’s geniuses very busy with productive engagements, rather than this rabid hatred.”