UN, Kanu, And IPOB

By Ochefu Itakpa

By now the media hype of the “storming” of the 2019 United Nations General Assembly in New York by the delusory Nnamdi Kanu at the head of an IPOB delegation must have achieved his sinister agenda of bamboozling the ignorant and misled Igbo youths. The self-destructive impetus of the Biafran pursuit, even among its conscripted clan members, was recently targeted at Kanu’s former “elders” with the near fatal “Nuremberg trial” of Ike Ekweremadu followed by the declaration of Europe a “no go area” for Igbo leaders.

It is now also dawning on the rest of the world that Kanu’s IPOB is a malady with a methodology for manipulating its adoption as a “liberation” movement for “oppressed Biafrans”, ultimately aimed at the Indigenous Peoples incubator of rebelling separatist groups in the UN. On September 13, 2019, IPOB posted: “UN vows to expel Nigeria if Buhari fails to allow Biafra to be created,” as the title of a Youtube video that went viral on Facebook. However, the video did not show any thing relating to the claim that the United Nations has resolved to expel Nigeria if President Buhari did not allow Biafra to be created. In fact, the first half of the video was from an episode of The Core, a show on Channels Television, titled “Biafra: A Metaphor for Restructuring”. The second half showed Nnamdi Kanu addressing a group of people.

A few days later it was the European Union’s turn for an internet scam that shared a picture on Facebook and Twitter claiming to show Nnamdi Kanu addressing the European Parliament. The picture was captioned: “Breaking news. IPOB Leader Nnamdi Kanu and Deputy Uche Mefor shakes (sic) European Union Parliament in Brussels. EU says Kanu, IPOB not terrorist organization. UN official hands Kanu invitation inside EU Parliament.” It was later discovered that the picture was an edited version of a photo that showed former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili addressing the parliament in 2006. Virtually everything about Nnamdi Kanu and IPOB is make-believe!

But of course, in today’s world, especially after the international tragedy of using weapons of mass deception to contrive weapons of mass destruction so as to wage genocidal war against Iraq, such criminal creativity can have devastatingly real implications, and Kanu’s bizarre IPOB could indeed be madness with a method.

This confounding conclusion is irresistible when supposedly reputable international technocrats such as Agnes Callamard, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Execution confers credibility on Kanu/IPOB by devoting a substantial portion of her recent official assignment in Nigeria to what is now beyond any doubt a huge hoax.

At the end of her visit, Madam Special Rapporteur sounded more like a femme fatale of the sovereignty and stability of Nigeria at a press conference where she bemoaned “the repression of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB” , and wailed that “the security response is dangerously quasi-prospective, with individuals, communities and associations actively targeted for what they may have done decades ago, or for what they may do or may become, rather than for what they are doing or have done.”

The UN agent provocateur exposed her dalliance with Nnamdi Kanu’s covert mission by giving the most falsified and biased account of the events leading to his unlawful departure from the country without any reference to his court arraignment or jumping bail. All she claimed to know is that “the IPOB leader went in exile and some of its followers disappeared since then. Following this event, the Federal High Court in Abuja proscribed IPOB and designated it as a terrorist group”.

Agnes Callimard thereby turned deaf ears and feigned ignorance of the series of contemptuous denunciations of Nigeria’s sovereignty and government, provocative challenge of legitimacy and authority of national security and defense forces, brazen formation and parading of private militia and open threats of terrorist activity for which Nnamdi Kanu and IPOB are notorious at home and abroad. She was exclusively interested in the prejudiced delimitation of her brief to highlight exaggerated alarmist narratives on necessary functions of law enforcement, security and defense forces whilst covering up the well-documented activities that attract such intervention.

So, Madam Provocateur was vociferous in reference to “police and military excessive use of lethal force in violation of applicable international standards, the militarisation of policing” and “quasi-prospective security responses”. Only briefly does she manage to acknowledge that the same measures “may have halted the progress of the insecurity at least on the surface and reduced the rates of killings” and “the increasing criminality, conflicts and security hot-points”. Perhaps Agnes Callimard will go a step further to give us the “international standard” purpose of nations having law enforcement, security and defense agencies other than to protect and preserve the sovereignty and internal stability against external aggression and domestic threats!

But, Agnes Callimard is just doing what she is paid to do by her UN employer. The UN is obviously working at the next level after the adoption of Resolution 6/295 in September 2007 as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. For the avoidance of doubt, its Article 5 unequivocally declares: “Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their distinct political, legal, economic, social and cultural institutions, while retaining their right to participate fully, if they so choose, in the political, economic, social and cultural life” of their countries. May Nigeria survive and outlive their sinister schemes against its sovereignty.

Ochefu Itakpa sent in this piece from Makurdi.