by Bruce Fein*
Was the July 6, 2022, unchallenged nighttime storming of the Kuje medium-security prison by Fulani terrorists a dress rehearsal for a Nigerian government assassination of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu under the pretext of a Boko Haram-ISIS attack on the DSS facility where he is currently detained?
History may not repeat itself, but it rhymes according to Mark Twain.
Think back to the 1998 mysterious death of MKO Abiola. He had been detained by military dictators on charges of treason for the audacity of winning the presidency in the 1993 Nigerian elections. On the day of Abiola’s scheduled release on July 7, 1998, he died under highly suspicious circumstances. Villainous dictator Sani Abacha’s chief security officer maintained that Abiola was beaten to death. But a Nigerian government orchestrated autopsy concluded that the 1993 winner of the presidency had died of a heart attack. Throw into the mix of incriminating circumstances the assassination of Abiola’s wife Kudirat two years earlier during MKO’s detention. Dear reader, you decide whether Abiola, whose popularity was a clear and present danger to Nigeria’s military dictatorship, was the victim of foul play.
Compare MNK’s plight with Abiola’s. MNK is wildly popular with Biafrans. He would win any free and fair election in Biafra by an overwhelming majority. More than one year ago, MNK was kidnapped and tortured in Kenya in collusion with Nigeria’s Fulani government and illegally transported to Abuja for indefinite solitary detention on faux charges of treason. The Fulani government is clueless about how to handle Biafra’s iconic savior. It has no evidence of treason, so a trial is a non-starter. The longer the government temporizes, the worse it looks. How can it be that with limitless resources, no scruples over bribing witnesses, and a pliable judiciary, the Fulani-controlled government of Muhammadu Buhari cannot even conduct a poorly executed show trial of MNK? The only plausible answer is that even a child would instantly be able to detect MNK’s innocence. Compare MNK’s plight with Abiola’s. MNK is wildly popular with Biafrans. He would win any free and fair election in Biafra by an overwhelming majority. More than one year ago, MNK was kidnapped and tortured in Kenya in collusion with Nigeria’s Fulani government and illegally transported to Abuja for indefinite solitary detention on faux charges of treason. The Fulani government is clueless about how to handle Biafra’s iconic savior. It has no evidence of treason, so a trial is a non-starter. The longer the government temporizes, the worse it looks. How can it be that with limitless resources, no scruples over bribing witnesses, and a pliable judiciary, the Fulani-controlled government of Muhammadu Buhari cannot even conduct a poorly executed show trial of MNK? The only plausible answer is that even a child would instantly be able to detect MNK’s innocence.
Now let us return to the July 6, 2022, portent. We know that the Buhari government is in bed with Boko Harem, a terrorist organization responsible for 35,000 murders and displacement of more than 2 million. President Buhari has systematically pardoned and released countless Boko Harem terrorists under the pretext of repentance, negotiation, surrender, rehabilitation, and deradicalization. But there is not a crumb of evidence that any released terrorist has exhibited earmarks of redemption. A leopard cannot change its spots.
Buhari rhetorically asked regarding the July 6 prison break, “How can terrorists organize, have weapons, attack a security installation and get away with it?” Buhari knows the answer. By collusion with his own Fulani-controlled government. Ilya Makama, who lives nearby the Kuje prison, recounted to The Guardian: “At about 10 pm we heard the sounds of gunshots continuing for about 40 minutes. In between the shooting we started hearing loud explosions. After a little over an hour, they started running past my window…All this while there were no sirens or helicopter patrol from the police or soldiers.”
Unable to move forward with a trial of MNK for lack of evidence—including venal witnesses—the criminally infested, Fulani-controlled Buhari administration might stoop to plotting MNK’s assassination during a faux attack on DSS facilities by enlisting as accomplices Boko Harem, ISIS, or a combination of the two. Or Buhari’s criminal gang might poison MNK but blame his death on natural causes using the suspect killing of MKO Abiola as a model.
International tribunals and organizations, however, have a spotlight on MNK’s health and safety. Buhari’s Fulani-controlled government would be well advised to refrain from flirting with an assassination option no matter how clumsily or expertly executed. The price to be paid would be incalculable.
*Bruce Fein is Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s international lawyer and spokesman.