Dele Momodu, a media entrepreneur, has joined the growing calls for Nnamdi Kanu, the imprisoned leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), to be freed.
Momodu discussed Kanu’s protracted arrest and the underlying causes of separatist sentiments in the South-East in a post on his X account on Tuesday. The post contained one of the IPOB leader’s previous broadcasts.
He argued that the Igbo people’s years of marginalization and hardship are the root cause of the Biafra movement.
“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,” Momodu stated in the post.
He criticized those who denounced Kanu and his supporters without taking into account the political and historical context of the rekindled agitation.
“I have 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 wasted millions of lives and destroyed unimaginable properties in the 1960s and ’70s,” he stated.
He claims that the “ongoing marginalization of the Igbo, and deprivation accorded some of the most energetic and vibrant brains in Africa, and globally, rekindled the Biafra sentiment.”
Momodu warned that eliminating or silencing Kanu would not end the current problem.
“Kanu’s enemies, including his own relatives, will never be able to eradicate him,” he declared.
He emphasized that rather than using repression, the Igbo movement needed “serious political reconfiguration.”
“I’ll never condone violence. He continued, “But any sensible government will keep the South East’s geniuses very busy with productive engagements, instead of this rabid hatred.”
