Today’s Headline: Kanu And IPOB Conundrum Just Beginning

The Nation has revealed that Kanu and IPOB conundrum is just beginning.

It is becoming obvious that in ‘intercepting’ Nnamdi Kanu in Kenya and forcing him back to Nigeria through the process of extraordinary rendition, the Muhammadu Buhari administration did not pay enough attention to the political and diplomatic consequences of its action. Evoking images of the failed 1984 plot to abduct and transport Umaru Dikko, ex-president Shehu Shagari’s Transport minister, back to Nigeria, the Kanu abduction is shaping up into a legal and diplomatic conundrum. Lightning never strikes the same place twice; but in the case of the rendition of Mr Kanu, the impatience and lack of reflectiveness of the Buhari administration cast doubt on that idiomatic expression. Mr Dikko was abducted in London with the help of Israeli Mossad agents, crated, and was nearly successfully transported back to Nigeria. During his exile days, and being an in-law to the deposed ex-president Shagari, he had been a remorseless critic of the Buhari military government. Until his abduction and rendition, Mr Kanu was similarly and probably the fiercest critic of President Buhari and an unrepentant exponent of secession.

This column, together with others, had warned that abducting and trying Mr Kanu in Nigeria was bound to have repercussions for the administration’s already battered image. The government should have let bad enough alone, this column counseled. Not only would Mr Kanu now exploit his trial to paint the government as irredeemably evil, even exaggerating the minute details of what the government did and did not do, he would in contrast paint himself as a hero, of course valorizing his every deed and painting them in loud colours. It would have been far better to keep Mr Kanu at arm’s length, where he was engaged in nothing better than a shouting match with the administration, while simultaneously countering his propaganda back in Abuja, the seat of government. But the administration, lured by James Bond movies and frustrated by the relentlessness of the IPOB leader’s verbiage, decided to ‘intercept’ Mr Kanu in Kenya. It must now contend with the blowback of eventually disclosing the details of how the fugitive was abducted, and who its accomplices were. If the Kenyan government was not officially involved, then the non-state actors involved in the saga would have to be identified.

This case is, however, complicated by Mr Kanu’s presumptive dual nationality. Even if Kenya displays espirit de corps with Nigeria, the United Kingdom (UK) is unlikely to follow suit. The legal system of the UK, to which Mr Kanu and his allies will probably make recourse at one point or the other, is not susceptible to the unhealthy extraneous and political influences Nigeria is conversant with and has taken for granted. Unlike Nigeria, not even the British government can exert any influence on UK courts when the case finally finds its way into the British legal system. Had the administration been careful enough, had it subjected the abduction to a thorough debate among key advisers, up to the point of even appointing a devil’s advocate in case of unanimity among advisers, someone among them would have counseled against moving against a target that would evoke the 1984 Dikko affair. And with President Buhari still receiving medical attention from Britain, what it stands to gain from having Mr Kanu controversially and dubiously ferried back to Nigeria, possibly receiving help from Kenyan security agents, pales into insignificance with the healthcare services he stands to continue receiving from that country of laws.

The Kanu Affair could still turn out to damage the Buhari administration beyond repair. Mr Kanu is a fugitive; but there are laws governing extraditions, especially between countries that have extradition treaties among themselves. There are no indications that the so-called ‘interception’ of Mr Kanu followed any law or international convention. These grey areas will be dispelled or affirmed during the trial. Though neither the Kenyan president nor any of his cabinet members has spoken up about the affair, one or two Kenyan officials have denied any official association with the abduction. In other words, Kenya is prepared to plead plausible deniability. On its own, after the initial euphoria of staging a James Bond-type rendition, the Nigerian government has begun to discover that in almost the entire south, few people applaud their action. The administration will, therefore, go on to rely on propaganda in order to whip up emotions against Mr Kanu, hoping that the evil ascribed to him would mitigate the lawlessness of his interception.

Shortly before President Buhari was due to depart for a medical follow-up late June, he cancelled the London trip. There are suggestions that he was aware of the Kanu abduction, which was announced four days after the president’s trip was cancelled on June 25. His spokesmen have not confirmed anything, and are probably not under any obligation to disclose anything. But doubts will persist in the minds of the public regarding who knew what and when, and how high up the knowledge went. Whatever the case, the Buhari administration must prepare for the blowback that will certainly come. How damaging that blowback would be remains unclear. Of course, given the idiosyncracy of the administration, even when the blowback comes, no one will be punished for inspiring and executing the extraordinary rendition. For such a small benefit as bringing Mr Kanu to retrial, instead of enduring his verbal effusions, it is in the character of the administration to disproportionately stake virtually everything on virtually nothing.

When he performed the turning of the sod of the Kaduna-Kano rail line project on Thursday, a visibly elated President Buhari enthused about its possibilities, including connections to inland dry ports, Apapa Port, and linkage to Maradi, Niger Republic. No matter how hard he tries, however, he is unlikely to succeed in convincing most Nigerians about the viability of the rail line to Niger Republic. So far, the administration has been manifestly uninterested in working out the economics of the Port Harcourt-Jos-Maiduguri railway, which is infinitely more beneficial to the country both in the short and long run than the Kano-Maradi line. Yet, like a military regime, the administration took the decision to build a rail line to Maradi and even borrow more than a billion dollars for that purpose.

By turning the sod and committing resources already, President Buhari knows it would become a sore political point for the next administration to cancel the Maradi project without attracting political consequences. There is some suspicion that he might angle for a third term, or, like his predecessors, install a successor who is pliant to him and the ruling party. He may even influence the ‘election’ of a successor, if the country lets him, but he cannot take a third term without dooming his presidency and probably taking the nation along with the ill-fated project.

The Maradi project, a more fitting name by which to identify it, is an emotional one for President Buhari. He pretends to some sound railway transport economics to persuade the public. In reality, however, the president has always felt a closer bond to Nigeria’s northern neighbours, particularly Niger Republic where he says his cousins live, than to any of the country’s southern neighbours. He was always provincial, never cosmopolitan in any way. At his quite advanced age, and having secured a second term in which he is no longer beholden to anyone nor compelled by conscience to appreciate one good turn, there is now no changing his person or style. He will proceed insularly in that direction until he oversteps the bounds of decency.