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The Rise & Fall of Nnamdi Kanu - Life Imprisonment Sentencing · DidiLawren

• 0:04
  Hello and welcome back to the episode of Banti Lorencia.
• 0:06
  How are you all doing, if you're doing great?
• 0:07
  For today's episode, I want to talk about the sentencing of
• 0:12
  Mazi Namdikano. Mazi Namdikano had been
• 0:15
  sentenced to life imprisonment and he's been moved to Sokoto to
• 0:20
  start his sentencing. Now a lot has been going on
• 0:27
  online. A lot.
• 0:29
  Bianco Juku came out, released the statement calling for calm.
• 0:35
  Peter Obi came out, released the statement calling for, you know,
• 0:40
  dialogue and for peace. It is sad because I was kind of
• 0:50
  aware when this whole thing started.
• 0:56
  I, this was in 2014, I was doing my internship in London.
• 1:01
  I was posted to Ben Television. So I met other broadcasters and
• 1:10
  I met, you know, some IBO brothers who invited me to join
• 1:16
  the IBO community in London. I went for the for my first and
• 1:21
  last meeting, actually for my first and last meeting.
• 1:25
  And the conversation was centred around Mazi Naam Dekhan.
• 1:33
  Before then I had no idea who he was.
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  So I was like, you know, who is this guy that's had managed to
• 1:42
  annoy everybody? Who is this guy that has managed
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  to everybody was pissed, everybody was angry.
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  Now, according to the story, a doctor in, he's not in London,
• 1:56
  but you know, in the UK somewhere, I think Scotland or
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  somewhere, started a radio station which he called Radio
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  Biafra. And he had been running this for
• 2:10
  a very long time or for a while. I think he started in 22,000 and
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  9 and because of his very busy schedule, he spoke to Namdi
• 2:22
  Kanu. Because Namdi Kanu was very, you
• 2:25
  know, talkative is he felt that he could be able to reach out to
• 2:32
  even more audience, the younger generation because he was much
• 2:37
  older at that point. And Namdi Kanu then was a very,
• 2:40
  you know, young man who could easily do the job.
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  He employed Namdikano, according to the story.
• 2:49
  And then for some reason, they fell out.
• 2:55
  And one of the reasons why, according to them, they fell out
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  was because Namdikano had started collecting money,
• 3:04
  changed the company account or the radio account because people
• 3:09
  were donating, you know, if you like what they're doing, you're
• 3:12
  donating to them. So he opened a separate account
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  because then it was just UK and a little and a little bit of
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  rich in Europe. So when he took over, he was
• 3:26
  able to reach more people. He was soliciting for funds.
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  He was he left. According to them, it was
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  supposed to be a radio station talking about IBO culture,
• 3:38
  peace, unity and how to just unite Ibos in diaspora.
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  Namdikanu, according to them, took it to a different level
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  where he was now inciting violence, talking about, you
• 3:54
  know, how the British helped the Nigerian government to win the
• 3:57
  Biafra war. And you know, when you talk
• 4:01
  about the Biafra war, it's kind of an unhealed.
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  I don't think we, the younger generation or even his
• 4:12
  generation, had processed the impact of the Biafran war
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  because we all grew up. We hear about it, our parents
• 4:21
  tell us about it. But when they talk about it,
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  it's from a place of anger. It's from a place of hurt.
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  It's from a place of, I don't know, sometimes I say our we all
• 4:41
  need therapy. To be honest.
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  The whole evil race need therapy because Nigeria is not going to
• 4:49
  admit to whatever wrong that the Ibos feel or felt that was done
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  to them. There's not going to be an
• 5:01
  apology. History doesn't even recognise
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  that. I mean, the Holocaust, we could
• 5:07
  see that it's it's there in history.
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  It was documented. So we hear all these things
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  coming from a very angry place. I think Namdikano took that
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  anger to a different level. Because you don't know how
• 5:30
  things, what you say is going to affect a child.
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  You have no idea. I think he took it upon himself,
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  did research and he wanted to get all those informations out.
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  And people loved it. These were the generation of
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  people who have been told all the stories and they wanted,
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  they wanted something, you know, acknowledgement or they started
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  donating because he was saying that he was going to do this, he
• 6:01
  was going to build this. He was going to go to the
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  British Parliament. He was going to.
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  So then the Doctor Who started the station was not happy with
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  Namdecan. And then Namdecan decided to
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  open up a separate group called I Pop.
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  This was in 2012. So that was going on.
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  That was going on. The doctor realised that if he
• 6:32
  take back the radio station, there is the face already is a
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  Namdecano. Internationally, his was you
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  know, national UK and a bit of Nigeria, but Namdecano took it
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  international UKUS Canada, Europe.
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  Everybody was talking about Radio Verafra.
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  So the doctor decided to step away and officially in 2013,
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  Namdekan registered Radio Biafra in Company House UK.
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  So he officially at that point took Radio Biafra and then
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  abandoned, according to what they said, abandoned every other
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  person, which is why when everything was going on, not a
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  single UK person said anything. The people who were talking were
• 7:27
  mostly Europe, America and other places.
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  The UK people, yes, some people said something, maybe, you know,
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  people in Manchester and all that, but people in London knew
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  the story behind it, which is why I think.
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  And when he was doing all those things, he was also bashing the
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  IBU leaders, saying that they were weak, They were they like,
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  what do you want them to do, start another civil war?
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  Which was also why when everything was going down, most
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  of the leaders or people in power who could have said
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  something took him back seats. I was like this guy, this guy
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  must be powerful. I remember I Googled him and
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  then he wasn't really that you couldn't see much of, you know,
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  his footprints. He was still, you know, within
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  the evil community. Yes, he was posted online, but
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  you couldn't really see much of Namdikano until he was going.
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  You know, from countries to countries, people donating
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  money. They donated millions of
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  dollars, millions of pounds, millions of euros to Mazin
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  Namdikanu, which is why I think people betrayed him.
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  He was making money, he was making money.
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  He was talking, he was ranting. I think work led to his arrest.
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  Was the sit at home. I mean, we're talking about from
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  2014, the first time I heard about him to 2021 when he
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  decided to create a state, create an army and then have
• 9:52
  people sit at home on Monday to protest.
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  I think that was when IBO people, you don't play with
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  their money. I think that was when he was
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  betrayed. They betrayed, they knew where
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  he was told the Nigerian government and he was picked up.
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  And because they were the ones behind it, I think the elders
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  did not say anything, which is why even we had we have
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  terrorists who have done worse. Gummy, for example, who knows
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  all The Who terrorists. I was born and brought up in the
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  north. Violence was the odd of the day.
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  They were crises. The first crisis I witnessed or
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  I I saw the effects. The aftermath of that crisis was
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  I think in twent 1994. I was a child and it was such a
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  bad, you know, we came to Bauchi and there was so much you could
• 11:00
  see buildings burnt down and you could see what why I always go
• 11:06
  into those buildings was I don't know who planted tomatoes in the
• 11:11
  buildings, but you could see, you know, you see a very burnt
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  down building. Like we just see the the
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  structure there and you see fresh tomatoes everywhere, fresh
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  tomatoes. So I always just go there to
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  pick tomatoes, to eat tomatoes and you know, but you could see
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  the damage that was done. That was the first time I didn't
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  understand what it was, but I could tell that it was bad.
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  Kaduna, Kano, Plateau State, Katsina, Bruno, Sokoto.
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  The north has always been a violent place, but nobody, I
• 12:07
  don't think anybody, has been arrested and charged with
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  terrorism in Nigeria. Instead, the bandits were kind
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  of giving immunity and reintegrated into the society
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  because they have leaders who we are advocating for them.
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  I think that was where the Igbo people or the elders dropped the
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  ball. Because regardless, this is your
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  son, this is your child. Yes, he's crazy, yes, he's
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  stubborn, yes he is. He was inciting violence.
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  Before then, the Ebolan was very peaceful.
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  I Pope made Ebolan the war zone so I can.
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  I can also understand why they stayed out of it.
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  But right now, he HE Mazinam Dikham has been sentenced to
• 13:18
  life imprisonment. So what?
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  Where do we go from here? If Boko Haram members could be
• 13:28
  granted immunity? If Gumi could be advocating for
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  terrorists, yes, there were so many bloodshed in Ebola and I
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  can understand you know them, But do you throw a child away
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  and throw away the bathwater? What do you do at this point?
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  What do we do? Because this is his slap.
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  It is his slap that in the whole of Nigeria, in the whole of the
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  North, I was born and bred in the North.
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  I know the violence. I've seen the violence first
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  hand. I've witnessed the after
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  effects. I have seen bodies being burnt.
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  If nobody for over 30-40 years has been charged with terrorism,
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  why Namdi Kanu? I think this is the question
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  that everybody is asking. I think this is the question
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  that the IBO community, regardless of what Namdi Kanu
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  had done, need to sit down and ask themselves why him?
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  Anyway, let me know what you think.
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  Do you think that Namdi Kanu, San Monica, they went too far
• 15:03
  killing their own to make a point and they should pay for it
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  because no life, as long as it was the Ibos, it was Naamdi
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  Khan, it was Simoneva that had turned the Ebola into a war
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  zone, they should pay. Or are we being delusional to
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  say that they are paying for something?
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  The Nigerian government is punishing them for crying out
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  for the stories that were told to us, the mayhem, the
• 15:39
  bloodshed. We were not there.
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  We didn't witness it. They told us.
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  So our reaction to the stories that was told to us, should that
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  be used against us. Let me know what you think.
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  Thank you very much for watching today's episode.
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  Please like, like, like and share.
• 15:58
  Thank you very much for watching.
• 15:59
  Bye bye.