Dele Momodu Calls for IPOB Leader, Nnamdi Kanu’s Release

Media entrepreneur and publisher of Ovation International, Chief Dele Momodu, has called on the Federal Government to release the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.

Momodu, who was also a 2023 presidential aspirant, made the call in a post on his official X (formerly Twitter) account on Tuesday.

He urged the government to address the deep-rooted causes of separatist agitation in the South-East rather than attempting to silence its leaders.

Sharing a clip of one of Kanu’s broadcasts recorded shortly before his repatriation from Kenya, Momodu said the renewed agitation for Biafra was fuelled by decades of injustice.

“Shortly before his abduction from Kenya by the Nigerian government, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu made this thought-provoking broadcast in which he philosophised about the reasons he and his supporters became radicalised,” he wrote.

According to him, the calls for secession were not born in a vacuum but were tied to “decades of marginalisation and deprivation suffered by the Igbo people.”

The Ovation publisher criticised those who condemned Kanu without, in his view, seeking to understand the historical and political context behind the agitation.

“I have taken time to listen to his critics and discovered most of them only jumped to conclusions without proper analysis of why agitation for Biafra became reignited, attractive, and fanciful after the pogrom that wasted millions of lives and destroyed unimaginable properties in the 1960s and ’70s,” he noted.

Quoting Kanu, he added: “The continuing marginalisation of the Igbo, and deprivation accorded some of the most energetic and vibrant brains in Africa, and globally, rekindled the Biafra sentiment.”

Momodu cautioned that attempts to silence or eliminate Kanu would not bring an end to the agitation. Instead, he stressed, the government must pursue a political solution.

“Attempts by enemies of Kanu, including his own kinsmen, to exterminate him will never solve the problem. The Igbo struggle goes beyond legalese. It requires serious political reconfiguration, and urgently too,” he declared.

While clarifying his position, Momodu said he did not endorse violence but urged the government to engage the South-East constructively.

“I will never support violence. But any sensible government will keep the geniuses of the South-East very busy, with productive engagements, instead of this rabid hatred,” he said.

Momodu’s comments come at a time when calls are intensifying from political leaders, civil rights groups, and Igbo socio-cultural organisations for the release of Kanu and a political resolution to the separatist crisis in the South-East.

The IPOB leader has been in detention since his arrest and extraordinary rendition from Kenya in 2021, with his trial sparking debate on the best path toward lasting peace and unity in Nigeria.