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Media entrepreneur, Dele Momodu, has added his voice to the increasing calls for the release of Nnamdi Kanu, the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB.
In a post shared on his X account on Tuesday, Momodu who included one of the IPOB leader’s past broadcasts reflected on Kanu’s prolonged detention and the underlying factors fueling separatist sentiments in the South-East.
He contended that the Biafra movement stems from years of marginalisation and deprivation suffered by the Igbo people.
The post read, “Shortly before his abduction from Kenya by the Nigerian government, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu made this thought-provoking broadcast in which he philosophised about the reasons he and his supporters became radicalised,” Momodu wrote.
He faulted those who condemned Kanu and his followers without considering the historical and political circumstances behind the renewed agitation.
“I have taken time to listen to his critics and discovered most of them only jumped to conclusions without proper analysis of why agitation for Biafra became reignited, attractive, and fanciful after the pogrom that wasted millions of lives and destroyed unimaginable properties in the 1960s and ’70s,” he said.
According to him, the “continuing marginalisation of the Igbo, and deprivation accorded some of the most energetic and vibrant brains in Africa, and globally, rekindled the Biafra sentiment.”
Momodu cautioned that efforts to silence or eliminate Kanu would do nothing to resolve the ongoing crisis.
“Attempts by enemies of Kanu, including his own kinsmen, to exterminate him will never solve the problem,” he said.
He emphasised that the Igbo struggle required “serious political reconfiguration” rather than repression.
“I will never support violence. But any sensible government will keep the geniuses of the South East very busy, with productive engagements, instead of this rabid hatred,” he added.
