US-based Nigerian lawyer and Public Affairs Commentator, High Chief Owolabi Salis, has joined millions of others across the nation and abroad in mourning the demise of Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, the immediate-past President of Ohaneze Ndigbo Worldwide, who passed on to glory recently.
In a tribute, Salis described the departed Igbo-born industrialist as a great Nigerian patriot, who had contributed immensely to the development of sports and journalism in Nigeria, through his proprietorship of Iwuanyanwu Nationale FC, which brought fame to Nigerian soccer, and the Champion Newspapers, which contributed in no mean extent in lifting the sphere of journalism in Nigeria and Africa to considerable heights.
Salis, in the statement, made available to LEADERSHIP, also renewed his appeal to President Bola Tinubu to hearken to the popular plea of the Ndigbo, Igbo Elders, and members of the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) for the release of IPOB leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.
The Lawyer-politician who holds the title of Onyeama Ndigbo Gburugburu of Etiti Mgboko, Abia State, said his call was necessary in view of the persistent pleas by the belated Iwuanyanwu, for Kanu’s release during his lifet-time, coupled with the latest concern being raised over the worsening state of his health.
“This is why I am once again calling as I had earlier done before,on the President, to grant a presidential amnesty for the release of the long-detained IPOB leader. The argument that his case was complicated by court procedures doesn’t hold. If the President is interested in his release, he will be. Kanu, to me, is just a freedom fighter and if other freedom fighters are walking free, equity demands that he should be too. Yoruba spirituality demands on all true Yoruba people to demonstrate fairness and equity.
‘’And I honestly urge Mr. President to follow the Yoruba spiritual order” Kanu could be requested to sign an “Affidavit of Good Behavior” towards ensuring peace in igboland and Nigeria as a whole. I strongly believe he will be willing to do that. We are tired of seeing igbo killing one another in igboland. This has gotten out of hand.
“We will not like the young man to die in detention,as that might trigger a chain of reactions,the end of which no one can fore-tell,apart from casting a big slur on the democratic and human right credentials of the incumbent government in power,” said the popularly acclaimed social critic and Lawyer, who in 2019 contested for governorship in Lagos State on the platform of Alliance for Democracy (AD).
Citing the Ghana precedent, Salis recalled that the indefinite detention of Dr. J.B. Danquah, the renowned Asante-born prince,lawyer and intellectual,by Nkrumah,leading to his death after about a spell of five years in detention,turned out to be the irreversible nemesis that accelerated the disastrous exit of the great Ghanaian ruler from power,under the volatile agitation of the irrepressible warlike Asante kith and kin of the great Ghanaian Lawyer and intellectual, in a resistance, unprecedented as second to none, in the annals of political opposition in world history.
He stated that Tinubu’s release of Kanu without further delay, will be in keeping with the president’s antecedent as a patriot who along with like-minds struggled valiantly for democratic liberty in Nigeria, during the era of military rulership, and his (Tinubu) tenure as governor of Lagos State, through his several litigations against the incumbent federal powers, which went a long way in defining and upholding the rule of law in diverse aspects that were critical to effective operation of a political federation as embodied in the Nigerian experience.
“I am making this plea, not just in my capacity as a titled High Chief of Igboland,but more importantly in accordance with the universal value of justice, equity, and fairness,which are generally accepted canons of modern liberal democracy. I wish to believe that by now,Kanu would have undergone repeated moments of sober reflections,which in turn would have mellowed his fanatical overzealous temper for a matured lease of level headedness,” said Salis.
He implored the Igbo to shed every lingering vestige of the Biafran syndrome and rather key into the edifying vision of a united,virile, prosperous and greater Nigerian federation.
While lauding the Igbo for their numerous sterling qualities, which according to him are unique and uncommon, urged that those qualities are essentially maximized within a larger Nigerian framework, just as he also called on other non-Igbo Nigerians to embrace their Igbo brothers where-ever their paths crossed.
“By so doing that, the ugly specter of the Biafran experience could be said to have been banished. We have to forgive and forget,” he added.
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