Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s presidential candidate in Nigeria’s 2023 general election and former governor of Anambra State, has issued a strongly worded caution to the federal government following the conviction and life sentencing of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). In a detailed statement posted on his verified X (formerly Twitter) account on Saturday, Obi warned that the court’s decision risks deepening the country’s already severe insecurity crisis and heightening ethnic and regional tensions rather than resolving them.
Describing the moment as one that demands sober national reflection, Obi pointed to the confluence of crippling economic hardship, rampant banditry, kidnapping, and separatist agitation that has plagued Nigeria in recent years. “At a time when citizens are battling hyper-inflation, unemployment, and daily threats to their lives, a judgment of this nature is more likely to inflame national anxiety than calm it,” he wrote. The former governor’s intervention comes barely seventy-two hours after Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court in Abuja delivered a landmark ruling that found Kanu guilty on all seven counts of terrorism-related offences levelled against him by the federal government.
The charges, which centred on Kanu’s secessionist broadcasts via Radio Biafra, alleged incitement to violence, sponsorship of terrorist acts, and destruction of public property, carried the heaviest possible penalties under Nigeria’s Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act. On five of the counts, the court imposed life imprisonment without option of fine; on one count, twenty years; and on the remaining count, five years. The sentences are to run concurrently, effectively keeping the IPOB leader behind bars for the rest of his natural life unless overturned on appeal or commuted through executive clemency.
Obi’s statement did not contest the independence of the judiciary or the technical merits of the verdict. Instead, he situated the entire saga within a broader narrative of missed opportunities and leadership failure. According to him, both Kanu’s initial flight from Nigeria in 2017 after soldiers stormed his home and his dramatic rearrest in Kenya in 2021 could have been avoided entirely through proactive political engagement. “The grievances articulated by Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and his followers—marginalisation, inequitable resource distribution, lopsided appointments, and the perceived domination of certain sections of the country—are not new,” Obi stressed. “They predate his emergence and have been echoed by elders, youths, and civil society across the South-East and beyond for decades.”
The two-term Anambra governor argued that the resort to extraordinary rendition, prolonged detention without trial, and now a life sentence represented the triumph of coercion over reason. “Force becomes the only option when dialogue has been exhausted,” he wrote. “In this instance, dialogue was never genuinely explored, or at best, it was pursued half-heartedly and without the required empathy.” He reminded the government that many of the socio-economic conditions that fuelled the resurgence of Biafran agitation in the mid-2010s—infrastructure decay, youth unemployment, and a pervasive sense of exclusion—remain unaddressed.
Calling for immediate high-level intervention, Obi urged President Bola Tinubu, the Council of State, traditional rulers, religious leaders, and elder statesmen from all geopolitical zones to step in before the situation spirals further. He specifically advocated a shift from “hostility to healing, from retaliation to reconciliation, and from division to dialogue.” While acknowledging the pain caused by IPOB’s sit-at-home orders and attacks on security agents and civilians in the South-East, Obi insisted that only justice, fairness, and inclusive governance can permanently silence the guns and restore confidence in the Nigerian project.
The conviction has already triggered sharply divergent reactions across the country. In many parts of the South-East, where Kanu retains a messianic following among segments of the youth, news of the life sentence was met with anger, mourning, and threats of escalated confrontation. Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, described the verdict as “judicially sound but politically catastrophic,” warning that it could radicalise a new generation. Conversely, some northern and southwestern commentators hailed the ruling as a decisive blow against separatist threats and a reaffirmation of Nigeria’s indivisibility.
Legal experts anticipate that Kanu’s defence team, led by veteran human rights lawyer Mike Ozekhome, SAN, will file an appeal at the Court of Appeal within the statutory fourteen days, challenging both substantive and procedural aspects of the trial, including the manner of Kanu’s repatriation from Kenya, which the ECOWAS Court had earlier declared illegal.
As Nigeria grapples with multiple insurgencies—Boko Haram in the North-East, banditry in the North-West, farmer-herder clashes in the Middle Belt, and now renewed separatist volatility in the South-East—Peter Obi’s statement serves as a sobering reminder that courtroom victories do not automatically translate into peace on the streets. With the Christmas season approaching and memories of past IPOB-enforced lockdowns still fresh, citizens and security agencies alike are watching to see whether the federal government will double down on its hardline stance or heed calls for a political solution.
In his closing lines, Obi expressed cautious optimism: “If we choose justice over vengeance, compassion over conquest, and unity over uniformity, peace will prevail. Nigeria is bigger than any one individual or grievance. Let us prove it by the decisions we take today.” Whether those in authority will listen remains, for now, the question on which the immediate future of Africa’s most populous nation may hinge.
