The Fall And Fall Of Kenny Okwu Kanu AKA Nnamdi Kanu. Dr Uche Diala

As a rule, you don’t kick a man when he is down. But when a man so deliberately, publicly and desperately orchestrates his own fall, you can’t really blame people who fail to stick to that rule.

I always knew it will end in chaos. Any reasonable person ought to have known. No one embarks on such a journey; in such a manner; thoughtlessly and arrogantly carrying on, with no care as to words spoken and no discretion whatsoever in actions; no regard for any one; no rules of engagement, and not end disastrously.

That is the case of Kenny Okwu kanu aka Nnamdi Kanu who misappropriated our collective Biafran franchise and messed it up. Only an unrealistic person and maybe his ardent devotees would be surprised or fiegn surprise at his arrest.

For me the only surprise is that it took too long to happen for he was operating like a serial killer deliberately setting up himself to be caught.

This is why I laugh at the display of pretentious emotions and support for this brother by some people since the news of his arrest broke. You do not ‘support’ a man and see him driving full speed into fire and yet you keep hailing him, without calling him to order or advising him until he actually drives into the fire, yet still mouth empty and banal words of ‘support’. Some even have the shamelessness to taunt others who actually hit the alarm bell consistently. For how long will you deceive yourself?

The truth is that all the while, I was asking myself how it is that many otherwise smart Igbo brethren could allow themselves to be so badly brain washed and impervious to reality that they could not see the danger that this brother was putting himself, never mind impressionable Igbo youths and ala Igbo itself in.

Sad to say it was such display of monumental un-Igbo lack of smartness and discretion; egged on by not a few of our brethren in diaspora and some self seeking ‘leaders’, politicians and pseudo-intellectuals at home in addition to defeaning silence in the face of looming anarchy by elders and others who ought to know better that emboldened and drove this our brother (yes he is and remains out brother) to challenge even his own Chi.

In so doing, he misled many of our young and not so young ones with his phantom sense of invincibility, world wide support and influence and they so easily believed him. Alas the greatest shock to many of his deceived acolytes today is his unremarkable arrest in spite of all the powers, connection that he had convinced them he had.

Indeed the greatest fraud and injustice Kenny Okwu Kanu aka Nnamdi Kanu did to Ala Igbo was to mislead and decieve our youths in such a monumental and never before seen or imagined manner. That damage will take decades to undo, if ever.

This was a brother who told our people and many actually believed and sold same that he had single handedly gotten endorsements from the European Union, Donald Trump of the United States, indeed the US Congress, Israel, Russia etc etc. These he did not just say in his usual loquacious and tactless manner; there was indeed an orchestrated, deliberate determination to mislead our people by perfecting the art of fake news, infantile propaganda; deploying doctored and outrightly fake videos, pictures and audio, carefully crafted and religiously deployed deliberately to drive impressionable and uninformed Igbo youth into violent acts, the likes of which have never been known amongst or associated with Ndi Igbo even from pre-historic times, including beheading people. One still wonders what the strategy was.

Sadly these violent acts were directed at or perpetrated on mostly his (our) fellow Igbo brethren, including policemen and members of other security agencies of Igbo extraction and those brethren they tagged ‘saboteurs’, efulefu, Fulani enablers etc; simply because they refused to be brain washed and to join the bandwagon of hate, madness and sheer lack of common sense.

I watched as many supposedly educated and widely travelled Igbo brethren were irredeemably sold on this scam such that they couldn’t see it for what it really and clearly was and I shuddered. Make no mistake, Kenny Okwu Kanu was not the first to misappropriate the Biafran franchise and my guess is he won’t be the last. But something about his own case is fatalistic.

Kenny Okwu Kanu misappropriated the name of HE Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe and renamed himself Nnamdi Kanu. I bet most of his ardent followers do not know his real name.

The fact of the matter is that Kenny has been a ‘person of interest’ to UK and world authorities for a very reasonable length of time now, when his activities and its consequences in Nigeria; (especially in his homeland, the South East that he claimed to be fighting to “liberate”) were officially brought to the notice of the UK authorities.

He was invited and confronted with the allegations which he denied. So much for bravado. He was asked not to leave the UK while investigation was ongoing. Alas before his appointment date came up, he absconded from the UK. That put the INTERPOL on his trail.

Yet even while this brother was sneaking around from one country to another and in-between international borders, trying to hide from his shadows, he did not let up on his effort at inciting insecurity and mayhem in his homeland, the South East. He still held many of our people under his spell.

He never told his followers that there was snake in the tatch roof. He misled and continued deceiving them like he had done all through the period of his misadventure. Recently he said he was going into a period of prayer, whatever that meant. I personally laughed become I knew the real fact was that as we say in local parlance, ‘oku di over’. The world had decoded what he was and who he really was and no nation wanted to be associated or said to be associated with him. They never were in the first place anyways, in spite of his fabrications. Alas the cookie crumbled.

I have read some of his acolytes and some people who pretend that they love ala Igbo more than others, looking for who to blame. Well, there is no one to blame but Kenny Okwu Kanu aka Nnamdi Kanu himself. No World body, nation or international security organisation would listen to just his words, spoken by himself and documented by himself and need any plenty verbiage or proof from the Nigeria government or anyone for that matter. They are self indicting, laying in plain view. One asks again: What type of strategy was that?

It is unfortunate what has happened to a brother but people should always be ready to bear the consequences of their deeds.

As a true Igbo son, I want the best for my people within the context of a wider Nigerians state and I will support any one, Igbo or not who can help that cause. But ANYONE who would take the route this brother took, endangering our people will never get my support. I do not care what grammer, abuse or emotional mumbo jumbo anyone spins.

I will continue to pray for us to wake up from our slumber and raise real and true leaders amongst us to champion our causes.

It is not too late to do so.

@Uche Diala