The leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, has recently been jailed for life, though he plans to appeal the verdict. Across the country, some people are happy about his incarceration and some others are sad. Some say that the young man had been very, very angry with the federal government of Nigeria for too long. But now, everywhere seems to be a little more quiet. And that gives us an opportunity to now sit back and reflect on Nnamdi Kanu’s travails through the years he opted to become the symbol of Igbo suppression and the freedom fighter for the liberation of his people. Why did he undertake such an onerous task? What must have motivated him? And why was he unstoppable? Why has he been so angry with the federal government of Nigeria?
One truth we have to acknowledge from the onset is that anger does not develop in a vacuum. Sometimes, it could be induced by the accumulation of bitter experiences, or the result of a sudden, unexpected juggling of the memory, a traumatic experience that won’t go away, a foreboding sense of exclusion from main actions or prolonged silence by those who should worry as the system rots by the day.
We may take the travails of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu as a case study. To understand why people like Nnamdi Kanu are very angry with the Nigerian government, we must move beyond political slogans, ethnic sentiments and media caricatures to confront Nigeria’s unresolved past and its dysfunctional present. Without this honest engagement, the country will continue to misdiagnose legitimate agitation as criminality, even as treason and not as a symptom of its deep and abysmal national failure.
But let us view the scenario from a true perspective. The Nigerian civil war officially began on 6 July 1967. Nnamdi Kanu was born on 25 September 1967, two months and nineteen days into one of the most disastrous fratricidal wars in Africa’s modern history. His royal birth was not simply a biological event. It had political and humanitarian undertones, taking place in a land under siege, starvation and aerial bombardment. Like thousands of other Igbo children born during the war, his earliest experience was shaped by what he knew and lived with – deprivation, hunger, fear and unnecessary loss of human lives.
History records that during those years of war, the federal forces blockaded Biafra, cutting off the supply of food and medications and any other form of external humanitarian aid. As a result, over a million civilians, most of them children, died of starvation-related diseases such as kwashiorkor. Markets, churches, schools and hospitals were bombed by the federal forces that were bent on bringing the Igbo on their knees. Of course, these actions clearly contravened international laws governing armed conflict. But, thank God they were not abstract events. They were the lived experiences of Biafran families and communities. And it reflected their collective memory. So, actually, Igbo people did not merely lose a war: they endured a humanitarian catastrophe that the Nigerian state never formally acknowledged, apologized for, or adequately addressed. These were some of the things that angered such Igbo as Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, and who can blame them?
Another reason was that Nnamdi Kanu and other children born on the Biafra side of Nigeria during the civil war were issued Biafran birth certificates. When the war ended in 1970 with the declaration of “no victor, no vanquished,” the Nigerian authorities made no visible effort to regularize those documents or to reissue Nigerian birth certificates to those children. So, as far as those children were concerned, Biafra was their home and the only country they knew. That administrative oversight was not a trivial matter. Those who go to war with the sole intent of winning should also plan how to win the peace after the war has been fought and won. But in the case of Nigeria, there was no such provision because winning the Igbo in war was all that mattered to them. That failure was responsible for the consistent echo of separatism from the east, west and even the north, so many years after the civil war.
In developed countries like Britain and the US, birth certificates are very important because they are foundational documents that establish identity, citizenship and national belonging. For Nnamdi Kanu and many other Igbo children born during the war, their earliest sense of national existence carried the name of a country that Nigeria declared dead but could never properly bury because the federal forces were eager to win the war at any cost and did not realize the need to win the peace after the war was fought and won.
Those of us who live in countries like Britain and the United States understand the weight attached to such documents as the birth certificate. During the American presidential campaign, for example, Donald Trump questioned Barack Obama’s eligibility for the top political office, alleging that he was not born in the United States. Identity, legality and national belonging are not sentimental issues. They are the bedrock of political legitimacy. For individuals like Nnamdi Kanu, whose birth and early identity were entangled with a defunct state, which had not been addressed by the federal government, questions of national belonging were bound to resurface in adulthood. Childhood experiences normally shape adult convictions. A traumatic childhood experience, when unaddressed, does not fade but transforms into ideology, resistance and, sometimes, it could culminate in rage.
For Kanu and many like him, the Nigerian civil war did not truly end in 1970. It merely entered a quieter phase, one that was characterized by the same economic marginalization that marked the days of war, political exclusion and structural discrimination. The loss of Igbo properties, the abandoned property policy, the £20 compensation regardless of pre-war savings, and decades of underrepresentation in key national institutions reinforced the sensation that the Igbo were not going to be fully reintegrated into the Nigerian project. And that angered Nnamdi Kanu and the many Igbo who unflinchingly stood by him. What was there to blame them for?
Indeed, this unresolved history raises very uncomfortable but important questions. Why have Nigerian political leaders consistently conspired to fail to conduct a credible census? The last census was in 2006, nearly two decades ago. Could it possibly be that they don’t know that population figures are the foundation of planning, representation and resource allocation? A state that cannot accurately count its citizens cannot convincingly claim to govern them fairly. Census manipulation has long been a political tool, but it has only succeeded in deepening the mistrust among Nigeria’s ethnic nationalities.
Equally troubling is the government’s aversion to popular consultation. Why is the idea of a plebiscite treated as treasonable? In many parts of the world, plebiscites are legitimate democratic tools for resolving deep-seated national conflicts. Scotland held a plebiscite on independence from Britain. Quebec voted on separation from Canada. South Sudan emerged from a plebiscite. These processes did not automatically lead to disintegration. They only offered the people a voice. And the question is: what is the Nigerian government afraid of hearing from its own citizens?
Even Nigeria’s political structure itself is an invitation to civic agitation. Take Britain for example. That country is one of Nigeria’s major historical influencers. It is not a monolithic entity. It comprises of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, each with its own identity and varying degrees of economic and cultural autonomy, yet united under a central government in London. The United States operates an even more decentralized system, where states wield significant powers over policing, education, healthcare and business regulation. Citizens are free to reside in states whose laws align with their values, reducing tensions and encouraging accountability.
Why has Nigeria, by contrast, continued to operate an overcentralised system inherited from military rule? General Babangida’s creation of six geopolitical zones acknowledged regional diversity but stopped short of granting them social and economic freedom. Why should these zones not function as semi-autonomous entities with Vice Presidents or Premiers, while a central presidential government handles Defense, Foreign Policy, and the Central Bank? Why should states not control their police, manage their resources and tailor development to local needs and still come under the ECOWAS and African Union umbrella? Nigeria’s over-centralization of military and economic power in Abuja has not produced unity. It has produced competition for power at the centre. It has produced corruption and it has produced impunity, and violence. So, people like Mazi Nnamdi Kanu have a reason to be angry with the way the northern oligarchy has manipulated the country since independence.
There are countless reasons to agitate. For instance, there was a moment of hope when Igbo and Yoruba leaders sat in conference and undertook a political handshake across the Niger, aimed at rebalancing power away from the northern oligarchy that had dominated Nigeria since independence. That alliance promised a new Nigeria that would be built on transparency, equity and shared prosperity. But the momentum was lost. Internal sabotage, mutual suspicion and lack of sustained follow-through doomed the initiative. The Yoruba were later blamed by some Igbo for aligning with the Hausa-Fulani political establishment, reinforcing Igbo feelings of betrayal and subsequent isolation.
But be that as it may, the recent call on Ndigbo by Nigeria’s new Defense Minister, General Christopher Gwabin Musa (retired) when he took over the ministry on 4 December 2025 urging them to pursue political solutions to get Nnamdi Kanu out of his travail rather than confrontation deserves serious consideration. Militancy without strategy only deepens suffering. At the same time, the federal government must recognize that repression cannot substitute dialogue. Kanu’s continued detention has created a martyr figure of him, but criminal elements in the South East are also exploiting the situation to mask kidnapping, extortion and violence. Ironically, these criminals are further damaging the region’s image and economy, worsening the very grievances that fuel agitation. A political resolution would undercut their legitimacy and restore stability, if the Tinubu administration can only summon the courage to win the peace 55 years after the civil war ended.
On another level, the contrast between the government’s treatment of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and the agitators and bandits in the north is particularly worrying. These armed bandits are well documented for kidnapping schoolchildren in their hundreds, razing whole villages to rubbles, displacing millions from their ancestral homes and leaving trails of blood across the country: yet many of them have been offered amnesty, rehabilitation programmes or even integration into regular security forces. Compare their treatment with that of Nnamdi Kanu whose only weapon was his voice, not his gun and not his bomb. How can he possibly be jailed for life while those who kill with both the gun and their bare hands walk the streets of Nigeria as free men who never ever had blood on their hands? What moral logic underpins this approach? What honourable motivation do bandits have compared with agitators driven by historical grievances and political demands? Such double standards are bound to erode public trust and reinforce perceptions of ethnic bias in state policy. And so, when people like Nnamdi Kanu and others from the Southeast are angry with the federal government, the reasons are obvious. And no one can possibly blame them.
A country ruled by fear is not a democracy. When politicians speak of “our democracy,” citizens are entitled to ask what that phrase means to them in practice. Democracy is not periodic elections. It is participation, consent and accountability. “One Nigeria” cannot be sustained by force alone. A country that operates dual legal systems, secular and religious, without clear boundaries already acknowledges its pluralism. The challenge is to manage that diversity honestly rather than pretend it does not exist.
Adopting genuine federalism along American lines would not weaken Nigeria. On the contrary, it could save it from self-harm. State autonomy would allow regions to innovate, compete neatly and address local challenges effectively. It would reduce the stakes of capturing the centre and, by extension, the violence associated with it. Citizens dissatisfied with one state’s laws could just relocate to another, easing ethnic tensions and fostering national integration through choice rather than force.
Therefore, when people like Nnamdi Kanu are angry with the Nigerian government, that anger should be understood as a sociopolitical gesture, and not dismissed as madness or treason. His anger reflects a broken social contract and a failure to confront history. Many nations that refuse to listen to their angry citizens eventually listen to their revolutions. Nigeria still has the opportunity to choose dialogue, restructuring and justice over repression and denial. Understanding does not necessarily mean agreement. One may disagree with Nnamdi Kanu’s methods or rhetoric but still acknowledge the legitimacy of the questions he raises. Anger, when rooted in lived experience and collective memory, cannot be irrational. It is a demand to be seen, to be heard and taken seriously. Nigeria can only ignore that demand at the expense of its true unity.
The Mazi Nnamdi and IPOB agitation for a plebiscite is therefore not an anomaly. It is a rational response to systemic failure. Western Nigerian freedom fighter, Sunday Igboho’s call for an Oduduwa Republic did not arise from nowhere. It reflected similar frustrations within the Yoruba polity, particularly over insecurity and perceived federal neglect. When different regions independently arrive at the same conclusion, the problem cannot be the agitators but the structure of the state.
On a final note, much has been made of allegations that Nnamdi Kanu insulted other ethnic groups, including the Yoruba. If such statements were made, they should be understood within the context of frustration with bad governance rather than as a definitive expression of ethnic hatred. Political movements are rarely polite when it comes to that. Anger often spills over into rhetoric. But even outrage must always consider deeper issues like “why do so many Nigerians, across ethnic lines, feel alienated from the nation? Why are they not proud to be called Nigerians? Why are so many young-adult Nigerians willing to take unprecedented risks just to escape from the country? So, when Nnamdi Kanu and his sympathizers are angry with the Nigerian government, their frustration should be quite understandable. One Nigeria is just not working out. That is the truth.
Chief Sir Asinugo, PhD., M.A., KSC, is a veteran journalist
