The charge that Kanu’s conviction amounts to an injustice given that some other persons from other parts of Nigeria have committed treasonable and terroristic crimes and nothing happened to them requires some serious attention. But first of all, it has to be pointed out that justice has three faces – justice to the offender, justice to the offended, and justice to the community. If we look at justice from this multifaceted perspective, we would see more clearly who actually got justice and who did not. We would, this time, be able to view justice as a concrete act with a concrete impact – and not merely a vague concept in our head.
First, justice to the offender; Kanu was tried for terrorism which involves use of incitement and threat of violence to pursue a political cause. He didn’t contradict the evidence led against him (largely by way of several video clips showing him making the threats and incitement), so naturally was found guilty as charged – he failed to utilize the opportunity legally available to him to discredit the prosecution’s evidence. The only defence he kept raising was based on technicalities related to the manner of his arrest and the question of whether he could be tried based on a repealed law. I have dealt with these issues in the first part of this essay.
So, on this basis, the question of whether Kanu as an individual suspect – who should be personally answerable for his actions – was given justice or not should, in my honest view, be answered in the affirmative – yes justice was done to him. Justice in this case should not be confused with the communal justice which Igbo people may (rightly or wrongly) be seeking in the entire Kanu affair.
For anyone to claim otherwise, they must first show how the court was wrong in holding that Kanu’s rendition could not oust the jurisdiction of the court to try him (rendition never stopped trials in advanced democracies like the USA and Israel as I showed in the part 1 of this article). Second, they must show how the court was wrong in holding that by virtue of the saving provision in section 98(3) of the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act 2022, Kanu’s trial under the repealed Act was legal and constitutional. Third, such a person must show how the judge was wrong in finding Kanu guilty of terrorism based on the definition of the crime under our laws. And lastly, anyone alleging injustice against Kanu ought to convincingly show that he was deprived of fair hearing – indeed the court was very patient in trying to persuade him to enter his defence despite his hostile and disrespectful obduracy. Thus, as far as natural justice is concerned, the cardinal principle, “audi alteram partem” (“hear the other side”), was satisfied by the court.
Then, regarding justice to the offended. Those shouting injustice regarding Kanu’s conviction are refusing to see this face of justice – justice to the victim. With Kanu’s order to his followers to kill security agents and seize their guns, we started witnessing an unprecedented series of murder of policemen, soldiers, and even paramilitary personnel. His sit-at-home orders led to deaths and injuries as perpetrated by the enforcers – it does not matter whether the enforcers were directly sent by Kanu or not; his orders prompted the enforcement, simple. These orders to stay home have deprived communities of economic activities, deprived many poor people who feed through daily hustle of their daily bread, kept schoolchildren out of school, disrupted examinations, and caused economic losses to people who were forced to move their events after months of planning. Now, all these persons – including the dead and their families – deserve justice. Leaving Kanu to go scot-free in the name of justice to the Igbo would have done a grave injustice to these victims. And considering that most of these victims are Igbo, it becomes even more difficult fathoming how on earth such can be described as justice to Ndị Igbo.
Now, coming to justice to the community. In this case, there are two layers to the community affected by Kanu’s activities: Nigeria at large and the Southeast region. First, starting with the former, it is in the interest of Nigeria that terror suspects are arrested, tried, and punished. She would be doing herself a grave injustice when she fails in this regard, and the consequence is two-fold – first, the state suffers a weakening of its legitimacy as a legal and moral entity that embodies justice; second, the state fails in its duty to employ the law as a deterrent against terrorism and other violent crimes.
So, assuming that the Nigerian state is as guilty as charged – that it has failed to equally bring the full weight of the law on terrorists like Boko Haram, ISWAP, and Fulani herders (as against what was done to Kanu), it has only perpetrated a grave injustice against Nigeria and her people – and not just Igbo people. In fact, if there is a particular group which should complain of injustice, it is the northern people of Nigeria who become the immediate and most affected victims if impunity leads to thriving of terrorism.
Coming to the second layer of the community that is affected by the justice of Kanu’s terrorism trial – the Southeast, it should be pointed out that asking that one be treated the same way others are treated is not always a demand for justice; it may, in fact, be a display of the greatest folly. The questions should be: does Kanu’s trial mean the triumph of the law over incitement and fear-inducing threats that have cost Ndị Igbo so much? Is the trial a way of bringing justice to many Igbo sons and daughters that lost their lives as a result of these acts? If the answers are in the affirmative, then we should not cry injustice or demand to be treated in the same way as others.
That I’m treated the same way as others doesn’t necessarily mean justice has been done to me. I may, in fact, only have received my own dose of what is ultimately a general injustice. Failure of the state to activate the legal machinery against terrorists is a grave injustice which consequences include that terror is given the licence to thrive. Igbo people should not ask to be among the victims of this self-destructive injustice.
When those who like to see Kanu’s trial only through the narrow perspective of the failure of justice push their argument, one immediately gets the impression that it is these persons’ desire that what has been happening up north be experienced in the southeast too. Up there, years of accommodation of belligerent fundamentalism has rendered that region incurably fragile. Those who are nursing sympathy for Biafran fundamentalism are sowing the seed of terror that comes with fundamentalism.
Over the years in the north – save for muffled minority voices – nobody practically is speaking against fundamentalism. Those who spew fundamentalism are the heroes while any who dares speak against it becomes a villain. After Deborah Yakubu was stoned to death by a fundamentalist mob in 2022 in Sokoto, Atiku Abubakar made a tweet condemning the murder, but soon deleted it when the backlash started coming. The presidential election was just 11 months away and the astute politician would not risk losing his support in a region where fundamentalism has become normalized through years of tolerance. The result of this conspiracy of silence is that the evil of belligerent fundamentalism has and will continue to thrive taking whatever face it chooses – Maitatsine, Boko Haram, ISWAP, jungle justice mob etc.
Now something like this has been brewing in Igbo land in the last few years. People are being rebuked, called names, and villainised for disagreeing with an ideology and method championed by Kanu. Like in northern Nigeria, many southeasterners – including the leaders – have been intimidated into silence. The ideology has become so pervading that Igbo political leaders are reluctant to take a definite stand for fear of losing support. The leaders who have spoken about Kanu and his activities have largely spoken tongue-in-cheek, always coming short of calling the evil by its name. This is a big red flag and we should be worried.
The ordinary person in the street is no less wary of the consequences of speaking out. In 2022, following my widely shared writeup in which I decried the carnage going on in Igbo land and showing the link between it and Kanu’s inciting broadcasts before his rendition from Kenya, a colleague who, incidentally is not an Igbo, phoned to warn me to be careful. He had certainly observed how the whole Biafra thing has metamorphosed into a terror monster that seeks to devour any dissenter. And just last week, another friend and professional colleague called to give the same message of caution after reading the first part of this very article.
We should be worried that fundamentalism is taken root. And once such happens, the seed of terror has been sowed – and the door is opened for emergence of radicalized individuals and groups. The history of Boko Haram is a big lesson in this regard. This time it would no longer matter whether it is Kanu or IPOB, as the spirit of violent fundamentalism would always reincarnate in different bodies.
Igbo people who are genuinely concerned about justice in Nigeria can wisely only focus on demanding that justice be done regarding the terror groups that have for years rvageged northern Nigeria – and to some extent other parts of Nigeria. This is not the same as demanding that Kanu should not face justice or that his victims shouldn’t get justice. Rather, it is a call for justice to be more equitably distributed, so that all offenders will be punished and all the offended placated. Regarding justice to the offended, the argument that Kanu should not have been tried is akin to saying that since the victim of Mr. A did not get justice, therefore, the victim of Mr. B shouldn’t get. An eye for an eye will leave all of us blind.
Therefore, Ndị Igbo should not demand for their own share of fundamentalists, terrorists,.and “repented” terrorists. There is nothing to benefit from asking that the state’s apparent incapacity (or reluctance) to fight fundamentalism and terror be extended to your own land. If you ask for such and get it, then be also ready to have one of the inevitable follow-ups – intense counter-terror military operations. Of course, only a fool would want boots stamping on their backyard and aircraft bombing and straffing near the frontage of their house. Military operations often come with grim ramifications. They leave in their trail stories written in the blood of innocent victims of either collateral damage or sheer trigger-adventurism. Ask indigenes of the Northeast for firsthand accounts. A 133-page report released by Amnesty International in June 2015 titled “Stars on their Shoulders, Blood on their Hands: War Crimes Committed by the Nigerian Military in the Course of Security Operations against Boko Haram in North-East Nigeria,” stated that the “Nigerian military forces have extrajudicially executed more than 1,200 people; they have arbitrarily arrested at least 20, 000 people, mostly young men and boys; and have committed countless acts of torture.”
Whether those alleged to have been extrajudicially killed were terrorists or innocent persons, this is not what any region of Nigeria should bargain for in the name of seeking equal treatment. In any case, if such happens in the southeast, it will be greeted by another cry of marginalization. What exactly do we want?
CONCLUDED
