According to The Sun News, on Monday, November 24, 2025, Abumchukwu N. Okoye, national coordinator of the Take Back Nigeria Initiative (TBNI), reacted to the conviction of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, by Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court in Abuja.
Okoye argued the verdict is part of a northern scheme designed to pit Igbo against Yoruba and to discourage the South-East from backing President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the 2027 poll.
He urged President Tinubu to act swiftly and decisively including freeing Nnamdi Kanu, whom Okoye described as campaigning against Igbo marginalisation so that any plot to derail the president’s re-election bid is frustrated.
The legal expert said Tinubu is under sustained attack because certain northern politicians aim to stir ethnic tensions between Igbo and Yoruba ahead of 2027, repeating tactics they allegedly used to unseat former President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015.
Okoye insisted there is nothing to cheer about in the terrorism conviction handed to the IPOB leader by Justice Omotosho.
From the outset, he said, he had warned the federal government that this was essentially a political issue that needed a political solutionva matter of “equity of the jungle”.
He argued that, in such a jungle, fairness must be applied evenly to all sides and that the real problem is not the judge, not Kanu and not even President Tinubu, but rather a weak executive arm.
He said, “President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is being set up. Maybe he doesn’t know, but he will know six months before the general election in 2027.”
Okoye added that the Kanu case now looks like an ethnic confrontation between Yoruba and Igbo because the trial was allowed to stall through the eight-year tenure of former President Muhammadu Buhari. That delay, he said, is what has fuelled anger in the Igbo community.
According to him, the episode shouldn’t have escalated to this level if the previous administration had handled it properly. He claimed Kanu was taken back to Nigeria in suspicious circumstances, then the Department of State Services (DSS) dragged its feet on the trial, effectively handing a political problem to the current president to resolve.
He warned the same forces that manoeuvred against Jonathan in 2015 are seeking to use similar tactics against Tinubu in 2027. Okoye added that the president’s lack of decisive action, or the influence of those advising him, could be part of the conspiracy.
Emphasising TBNI’s commitment to constitutionalism, due process and equal treatment under the law, Okoye attacked double standards.
He recounted incidents in which heavily armed men met government officials in the North before slipping back into forest enclaves and described how some militants openly celebrated in towns without facing consequences.
He referenced claims by self-styled leaders who boast of having fighters under their command and criticised public figures who, in his view, either exonerated or downplayed the actions of violent groups.
He also noted how some prominent voices denied responsibility for the rise of extremist groups.
Okoye said the timing of external comments including a claim that a foreign leader might intervene to tackle groups accused of targeting Christians in parts of the North has been followed by fresh attacks: kidnappings of students across states such as Kwara, Kebbi, Niger and Nasarawa, and assaults on worshippers in churches. Yet, he pointed out, Kanu received a life sentence while other perpetrators remain at large.
He argued that the judiciary must follow legal precedent and comparative practice, but that the political and moral questions at the heart of Kanu’s agitation complaints about killings of Christians, attacks on southerners and the denial of basic security remain valid and unresolved.
Okoye insisted Kanu’s rights were violated: he was brought back to Nigeria under questionable conditions, stripped of dignity and subjected to psychological and spiritual abuse, yet expected to accept the situation calmly. That, he said, explains the bitterness seen among many Igbo people toward the ruling administration.
He accused those in power of setting up Justice Omotosho, saying the judge was trapped in a politically charged environment. While some deny a Christian genocide or dismiss the crisis as cultural, Okoye said the state must decide who wants to remain part of one united Nigeria otherwise regions should be free to pursue separation.
He equated Kanu’s struggle with the violence devastating other parts of the country the Northeast, Northwest and North-Central where religiously motivated groups have told people they must conform or be destroyed.
He questioned why the killers in those regions largely go unpunished while Kanu got a 25-years term for speaking out against what he called Christian genocide.
Okoye warned that the verdict deepens Igbo alienation from the Tinubu government precisely the outcome some northern actors desire to drive a wedge between Yoruba and Igbo voters before 2027. He urged the president not to allow that division to take hold.
Reiterating that Tinubu is not Jonathan and that 2015 will not be repeated, Okoye claimed the North’s tactics are predictable: they sow discord to regain power, and if Tinubu fails to act, he risks being undermined.
But he also pledged that if the president takes the necessary steps, those who engineered such plots will face consequences in 2027.
He also criticised the pattern of silence when northern politicians are in office and loud opposition when they are out, describing the sense of humiliation felt by many Igbo people.
He compared the present condition to biblical exile, noting that being forced to sing the song of Zion in a foreign land speaks to the loss of dignity they now feel.
Okoye warned that those eroding the South’s security and resources will reveal by 2026 their intent to control oil, money and natural resources with foreign backing.
He lamented that Nigerians of all groups Fulanis, Yorubas, Igbos, people of the South-South and Middle Belt had once coexisted peacefully before 2015.
“We know the dignity of a Sokoto man who speaks in a soft way as far back as 1960 and 1970,” he said, and Okoye added that he recognises the Yoruba’s proverbial speech and the Igbo’s tireless industriousness.
He concluded by warning that the militants imported to sway elections are now the enemies confronting the country and bitterly noted that those who brought them in remain in positions of authority.
