On the 25th of July 2021, I travelled with some family members from Lagos to Anambra to collect the bridal list from my in-laws, officially commencing the journey to my marriage. We arrived Nnewi around 5 pm and finished sometime past 8 pm. My wife was with us in the blue Lexus 350, along with my uncle and brother, and the plan was to pick her up early the next day — Monday, July 26th — and return to Lagos.
We slept in my hometown, Azigbo, and by 5:30 am, as planned, we set out for Nnewi through Amichi. Somewhere around the market near Igwe Orizu, we noticed vehicles coming from the opposite direction flashing their headlamps at us. We slowed down. A commercial bus driver revved close, shouting that we should turn back because “they are shooting ahead.”
Who? we asked.
“Biafra… IPOB,” he yelled as he sped off.
We reversed and joined the stream of fleeing vehicles. Because of engagements waiting for those in the car back in Lagos, we desperately needed to return that same day. So we tried entering Nnewi again through inner roads in Awka-Etiti. But the closer we got, the louder the gunshots became. We turned back.
Our in-laws confirmed on phone that Nnewi was “hot.” They advised us to either delay our trip or return to Lagos without their daughter. She could come later by public transport.
Back in Azigbo, we waited, then later stepped out to find food and see if we could still travel. That was when a group of men intercepted us at Ichida Bus Stop.
“Who are you people?!” one shouted while hitting our bonnet.
“Wind down!” another barked as they surrounded the car.
“Where are you going?! Don’t you know today is sit-at-home? Our leader Nnamdi Kanu is in detention and going to court!”
One of them tried to open the door.
“Oga, come down! All of you, come down. We are driving this car to Abuja today to go and see Kanu. Join us or give us the car.”
We pleaded. We reasoned with them. We condemned the injustice against Ndigbo and Kanu right there on the roadside. After tense moments, and led by my uncle in his late seventies, we gave them money. They finally let us go. We went to the popular nwanyi ocha at Ichida, ate, and decided we would rather risk going through Onitsha to Lagos.
For years I have asked myself: If this same experience happened between 2022 and 2024, when the groups had become more militarized, what would have been our fate?
We have all seen how similar encounters ended.
Another Encounter With Violence
Two months later, during marriage formalities, my wife and I visited Nnewi South LG Headquarters in Ukpor to register our marriage and get necessary documents. A young man from my village who worked at the LG helped us take pictures.
Months later, I met him again in Azigbo. He begged for job referrals — he no longer worked at the LG.
Unknown gunmen had attacked the LG headquarters, killing workers and labeling them “saboteurs of the zoo government.”
He told me:
“Nwanna, I escaped narrowly. Small thing, I for don die.”
My Stand on Peter Obi’s Statement
Yesterday, after my posts, people descended heavily on me. My disagreement with Peter Obi’s statement inflamed even more anger. But I stand by my position.
Social upheavals have complex histories. In 2019, Obi described IPOB as harmless freedom fighters with valid grievances who deserved dialogue, not proscription.
At that time, I agreed with him — and even today, in that context, I still do.
Even during the 2023 elections when opponents weaponized that old statement against him, I defended him relentlessly.
But this is 2025, and too much has happened between 2020 and now for anyone to pretend that the situation remains the same.
By around 2021/22, splinter groups emerged; violence became decentralized; the original IPOB itself often publicly denied the actions of new units. The landscape changed.
Nnamdi Kanu’s Own Words Condemned Him
We all heard Kanu’s broadcasts. We heard the incitement, the orders, the boasts.
These broadcasts still exist online.
He implicated himself repeatedly.
I vividly remember the 2020 EndSARS protest — a youth uprising against incompetent governance — and how Kanu suddenly inserted himself. His broadcast that day could have started ethnic conflict in Lagos. We warned Igbo youths to stay away from the protest grounds.
After the looting of a Lagos monarch’s palace, propaganda machinery began spinning narratives blaming Igbo youths, citing Kanu’s broadcast as proof.
Kanu did not care about the safety of Igbo people in Lagos who could have been targeted.
Then came the broadcasts urging followers to kill security operatives and seize weapons. Shortly afterwards, operatives — including Igbo officers — were murdered across the southeast.
Yet some people now try to rewrite history, pretending these things never happened.
The Harsh Reality of Violence in the Southeast
Some argue from the standpoint of federal government hypocrisy — that violent groups in other regions receive softer handling. Fair argument. But I personally do not want that failed model replicated in Igboland.
There was a time — as recent as 2014–2016 — when Igbo people confidently proclaimed online that an average Igbo person would never resort to terrorism. We believed our people would rather build businesses from scratch than take up arms.
How wrong we were.
Look at Ihiala, Iseke, and surrounding towns today.
Look at the destruction, fear, and killings — done by our own people to our own people.
Some cling to conspiracy theories that the federal government “planted” all the violence. To this, I say nothing.
People like Asoegwu receive death threats for calling out the atrocities, even with video proof. That is how radicalized some have become. Yesterday, someone I spent six years in secondary school with even threatened me.
My Final Words
This is the last time I will speak on this matter.
Those who feed and ride a tiger will eventually end in its belly.
For years, people fetched ant-infested firewood — and now the lizards have come.
It will take time to rid ourselves of them… if we ever do.
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