Bianca, IPOB, realpolitik
When Simon Ekpa’s evil caught up with him in Finland, he lied that all he did was create “content” — satanic content that, with his rogue IPOB faction, set fire
When Simon Ekpa’s evil caught up with him in Finland, he lied that all he did was create “content” -- satanic content that, with his rogue IPOB faction, set fire to his native homeland, and harvested the lives and limbs of fellow Igbo.
Of course, the Finland court baulked at his fib. For his “contents”, he is serving a six-year jail term. What happens after? Will Finland rehabilitate a prodigal citizen, or send him back to his native Nigeria, a part of which he strove so hard to destroy?
Nnmadi Kanu himself, after years of, with his lawyers and loud lobby, trying to block trial, bawled: “Omotoso, show me the law!” -- and that at the judge trying him, on the morning of his conviction.
Well, he’s seeing exactly what the law looks like behind the bars in Sokoto! It’s early days yet, taking in the law’s different blinding flashes! He just might do that for the rest of his life! It’s a sentence well-earned: Kanu hid behind IPOB and EndSARS riots to foment the mass killing of security agents, and cause wild arson in Lagos.
But after all of the IPOB thunder and fury, isn’t it ironic that the face of Nigeria’s foreign policy -- the window of Nigeria to the globe -- now bears the name of the rebel leader of the original Biafra: Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu? His widow, Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu is now Nigeria’s Foreign minister!
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A curious widow, you say, at a strange window! Now, what does that mean?
Cynical tokenism and icy realpolitik -- that now mocks the many IPOB lobbyists abroad, mouthing pro-Biafra lies against Nigeria, with the rather charming visage of Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu?
Or something far beyond tokenism, but no less realpolitik: that even the bitterest of conflicts could do with civility, which leaves the door open for mutual understanding and progressive compromises, thus bringing down the political temperature?
For starters, the optics of a so-called Biafra Government in Exile (BRIGIE), mouthing vile propaganda against Nigeria, with Ojukwu’s widow as Nigeria’s Foreign minister, would suck. Those over-excited lobbyists on X, uninformed Europeans and Americans grating raw and wild ignorance, could be forced to pull the brakes too.
That’s the point, though. Hatred and demonization seldom guarantee any progress. Even the worst of wars often irons out peace at the conference table.
Perhaps that’s the Bianca juncture at the Biafra agitations? Perhaps it’s that spot when IPOB and its lobby should change tack?
Perhaps a country that produced Alex Ekwueme as vice-president, barely nine years after the Civil War, and now Ojuwkwu’s wife as Foreign minister, is not the Igbo dystopia IPOB often paints?
Indeed, it’s time, for both sides, to work harder on inclusion, with clear transparency across the aisle.
