German Agency Urges Tinubu to Restore Peace in South-east by Releasing Kanu

Emmanuel Ugwu-Nwogo in Umuahia

A German international agency, the German Initiative for Knowledge Transfer, has renewed its call for the federal government to end the insecurity in the South-east zone by releasing Nnamdi Kanu.

The Country Director of the agency, Hon Obinna Ichita, made the call on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to intervene on Kanu’s travails, saying that his continued detention has perpetuated the insecurity plaguing the Southeast.

In a statement made available to the media yesterday, Ichita advocated the need for presidential intervention to resolve the Kanu issue and free the South-East from the stranglehold of insecurity.

The Country Director of the German Initiative for Knowledge Transfer had made similar demand on the presidency when Muhammadu Buhari was in power but the advice fell on deaf ears.

But Ichita urged Tinubu to succeed where his successor failed by freeing the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and restore peace to the zone.

“I appeal to President Tinubu to kindly intervene and graciously approve and direct the activation of a process that will see to the release of Mazi Kanu and the restoration of peace and security in Southeast through negotiation and alternative dispute resolution mechanism,” he said.

Ichita advised Tinubu to act now and resist the temptation of using Kanu’s release to score political point by waiting for election period before heeding the call to intervene in the matter.

According to him, “A timely commencement of this process will achieve the desired objective. Further delay may defeat this goal as some may view such gesture as a mere political strategy.

“Without prejudice to cases of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu vs Federal Government of Nigeria in different courts, I believe that the social and political issues that are germane for the restoration of peace and security in the Southeast can be resolved through conversations.”

The country director stated that should Tinubu do the needful and let Kanu go, such gesture “will not only portray the president as a unifier, but also ultimately showcase Nigeria as another example of Africans solving their problems without ‘external directives’.”

He said that “this approach would make it easier for the security operatives to distinguish between people who are agitating (for one consideration or the other) from those who attack security operatives in the Southeast.”

Ichita reminded the Nigerian authorities that “since even full blown wars are settled through negotiations, it would be smart to avoid wars through negotiations.”

He cited Rwanda as a country to emulate in building bridges of peace and reconciliation, saying that the Nigerian authorities should be thinking of using peaceful means to tackle issues that pose threat to national security.

He said: “Rwanda of today is markedly different from the Rwanda of 1994. We can achieve a peaceful and a just homeland, where no one is oppressed!

“If Rwandans can do it, Nigerians can do it too! It is smarter to talk about (the cause of the problems), instead of fighting about it.”

Ichita expressed disappointment at the attitude of Southeast leaders to the resolution of the insecurity in the zone, noting that they “do not seem to see the need to approach the president and seek his intervention.

“Many people have cancelled their planned trips to the East this festive season due to many incidents of kidnapping and attacks on security operatives.

“Yet the political leaders of Southeast do not seem to be bothered about this security challenge in their areas of responsibility. After all, they ride B6 (or B7) ballistic proof vehicles that cost hundreds of millions of tax payers’ money.”

The Country Director said that it’s hard for anyone to “really believe that the president will ignore the political leaders of a geopolitical zone in the country if they approached the Commander in Chief on an issue that affects National Security.

“Any development effort that does not consider the primacy of security cannot be said to be robust,” he said.