I was having a casual conversation with a lady of intelligence and humor and as you might know, conversations such as that tend to drift fast. From one topic, we jumped to the other until we got to the issue of the missing ‘freedom fighter’, his many futile bashings of the federal government and the empty promises to bring down Armageddon if anything happens to him. Well, as you and I have come to find out, he and the federal government are both sides of the same counterfeit coin.
While the mental Lilliputians applauded the launch of the infamous Biafra Secret Service, BSS, (a unit that would probably go down in history as a bunch of ‘soldiers’ that lost woefully without striking a single blow), by Nnamdi Kanu, the few sensible ones gawked by the sidelines in awe of the monumental stupidity that was eventually to consume the launcher along with his tattered, hungry and worn out looking old men in uniform.
I am not a fan of the Nigerian Army and I spoke out against the inhuman treatment meted out to those followers, who were turned into ‘mermaids’ in broad daylight and made to lay and cool off their pent up anger in the muddy water and many other atrocities that took place behind the scenes but the Python Dance achieved its purpose – momentarily silence the growing voice and movement of IPOB. It was a matter of ‘strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter”.
The sheep didn’t only scatter; the sheep hurriedly went into hibernation mode and the whereabouts of the ‘shepherd’ is a mystery with both sides of that same counterfeit coin pointing accusing fingers at each other.
When President Buhari returned from his now record-breaking medical sojourn, Kanu was the first to call him ‘Jibril from Sudan’, coming up with a conspiracy theory even the great espionage writer, Robert Ludlum, will find intriguing. “No, that was not the real Buhari, he has been replaced with someone else”, the ‘shepherd’ cried.
I don’t entirely blame him though. With the many lies and counter lies of the APC led administration and with the renowned Lai Mohammed still in the thick of things, one can never be sure. A sunny afternoon could be made to look like the back of a pot that just graced the abode of a firewood-lit flame.
For me, that was it – the final straw. Sanity had gone out of the window but that didn’t mean sanity was sitting still all along with hands and legs bound and mouth gagged in confinement. With the many utterances of the ‘shepherd’, sanity was, no doubt, a visitor.
Fast forward to the un-provoked show of strength of the notorious Nigeria Army down the streets of Nnamdi Kanu’s house, the melee that ensured with one side bloodied beyond recognition and his unexplainable ‘disappearance’, going down the lane of the conspiracy theory of ‘Jubril from Sudan’ might help in trying to unravel the mystery of the disappearance of the young man. Kanu might be many things, but I am sure he is no character in the many Nollywood movies you and I have come accustomed to, where the hero or the villain vanishes when things get too hot only to reappear at another safe place.
This will involve many “Ifs” but if ‘Jubril from Sudan’ could pass for president Buhari in Kanu’s mind, then sit back, fasten your seatbelt and let us all enjoy a long list of ‘ifs’.
The first scene, act one; what if the Army has Kanu. What if during the one sided- bout, they had whisked him away? Nothing is beyond the men in uniform. They have got a long list of such Gestapo acts. As claimed by his brother, his lawyer and those who are closer to him, he is in captivity. Is this beyond the Army? No, it is second nature. From that attack till date, Kanu has gone missing. The army has denied claims of having him. But wait! What ‘if’, like the leader of the Shiites, Ibraheem Zakzaky, he has been whisked away, but unlike Zakzaky, whose battered picture in a wheelbarrow went viral, there is no picture to confirm the arrest of Kanu? You can see that’s a big ‘if’.
Scene two, act one; what ‘if’ he has gone into hiding? That’s a highly possible ‘if’. Before the Army went on rampage, Kanu could have engaged in rapid dialogue with his feet. He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day. He could be miles away, on one of the beaches in Europe, feasting his eyes on the bikini clad ladies enjoying the sun and the glory of the ocean in its nakedness. That’s another possible ‘if’.
The third scene and one I won’t want to contemplate, is that he might have been killed. That’s a big ‘if’ and a titanic ‘might’. Yes. What ‘if’ he had been felled by a stray bullet? You won’t expect the Army to show-off his corpse like a medal of sorts. Even the world didn’t see the remains of the mastermind of the 9/11 attack on the United States, Osama Bin Laden, when his time finally came to atone for the lives of innocent souls lost in that attack. Don’t forget this is a journey into the spidery world of conspiracy theory, the same world Kanu was when he conjured up ‘Jubril from Sudan’. If he is no more, you still expect the Army to deny knowledge of it all.
In all this accusation and denial, one thing stands clear – Kanu missed another chance of glory today. He is not one to shy away from publicity, he would have had a lot of his teeming followers chanting his name as he steps in and out of the court premises. He loves the attention. He likes to bask in it. Something denied him of that chance today and whatever is happening or has happened to him, his followers need to know. Or better still, let us ask ‘Jubril from Sudan’.
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