Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) was abducted in Kenya between the last week of June 2021 and the first week of July 2021. Abuja confirmed that the abduction took place under her directives citing Interpol as a collaborator. A careful review of Interpol website Red Notices of wanted persons and News of recent arrests fails to mention the abductee. In the meantime Nairobi through its High Commissioner in Abuja has denied any involvement in the case that occurred in its territory. It is not the first time Kenya denies knowledge of international covert operation in her territory.
The article attempts to sketch out Kenya’s role as a state and location of high-profile international covert operation. In addition a review of emerging options in Nigeria is presented.
Knowledge in geography and history is essential towards understanding diplomatic, intelligence and geopolitical developments. While states are the smallest units of geopolitical engagements, all the actions occur in fixed locations called cities. Cities have many qualities, values and functions which ebb and flow over time. Some of these functions include favourability to covert intelligence and espionage operations. Examples include Cairo, Florida, London, Athens, Geneva, Brussels, Berlin, Beirut, Dubai, Bangkok, Kabul, Mexico City and Nairobi. All these cities are important intersection of international flow of persons/services regardless of size.
Intelligence and espionage are the
stock-in-trade of every state which are conducted overtly and covertly in
locations. Extra-territorial footprints define the big and medium powers. The big
states play high-stake operations while the small players do what they must. Some
of the big players including London may have supplied information/intelligence from
sources including infiltrating assets in IPOB to facilitate the operation in
Nairobi.
Intelligence and espionage are statecraft tools for enhancing strategic advantage of a state including higher profits,
material improvement and resource access. These are not mindless policies
implemented by irrational personnel. Kenya has evolved in this role in the last
4 decades with variable levels of successes and losses. Our attention will be
concentrated on just two which consolidated her pedigree as a favourable operator
in the dark arts of international covert operations.
In 1976 an Air France passenger aircraft was hijacked by pro-Palestinian groups fighting for the liberation of Palestine. Most of the passengers on board were Israelis. The aircraft finally landed in Entebbe, Uganda during the administration of Field Marshall Idi Amin. Naturally the hijackers got media attention and pressed their demands. Israel reviewed her options and favoured attack-and-rescue operations. There were major problems.
While negotiations with the hijackers via Ugandan government was ongoing, Tel Aviv approached Nairobi for assistance. President Daniel Arap Moi who was in charge agreed. Israeli forces took off south-bound navigating from the Gulf of Aqaba into the middle course of the Red Sea, then due south east until Bab el Mandeb before rounding the Horn of Africa. From that point they flew due south parallel to the eastern African seaboard until they entered Kenya airspace.
The entire inbound and outbound flight
height was low to avoid radar detection. Soviet listening post in Ethiopia was
aware, so were US warships in proximity. Inside Kenya the planes descended into
the rift valley until they emerged onto Nairobi International Airport to
refuel. After refuelling, they made for
Entebbe via the rift valley in a surprise attack, rescued the hostages and flew home in triumph with minimum casualties. Nairobi denied involvement at the time.
Abdalla Ocalan is the founder-leader of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), fighting for the liberation of Kurds in Turkey. The Kurds are one of the minority nations discriminated in Turkey among other countries in the region including Iraq, Syria and Iran. They are referred to as the biggest nation without a state. He studied political science at Ankara University. To increase pressure on Turkey, he led his group in armed struggle while based in Syria. However as facts of the ground changed, Damascus reminded him of his new status of an unwelcome guest.
From then he travelled to many
countries in Europe including Russia but none granted him asylum. When his
plane approached Amsterdam to enable him stand trial, it was refused entry. Greece
allowed him entry for a brief period because the diplomatic heat was fierce that
no capital wants to have anything associated with him or PKK. Turkish
intelligence and her allies deployed across the world monitoring this global
movement with the single purpose to capture him.
Ocalan left Greece on a private
jet for Nairobi where he was under Greek protection. No one till today can
accurately explain the chain of events that followed. Nevertheless Athens came
under heavy pressure, Nairobi played her usual part. On February 1999, Ocalan
left the Greek embassy in Nairobi for the airport and was stopped and arrested
by armed masked men later identified as Turkish intelligence operatives. He was
transferred to a waiting aircraft and flown out immediately to Turkey. Naturally
Nairobi denied involvement in the operation.
Any credible geopolitical watcher will be at a loss on the strategic reason for this costly operation. Given the uncertainty, instability and unreliability of security and public administration which is increasingly spatially limited, Abuja’s triumphalist dispatches are unclear. A number of points need to be recognised for clarity.
The situation on the ground in
Nigeria which is accelerating centrifugal forces is unmitigated by the
abduction. The spatial spread of instability, non-government armed interventions
and kidnappings is wider. This is stronger in the northern part of the country.
On this singular point it is evident that the state have lost its monopoly of
violence in its territory. Not only that, there is no effective response to lawlessness including
absence of arrest of suspects and successful prosecutions.
By the abduction, Nnamdi Kanu has
been elevated in stature beyond Abuja’s calculation. Various players on the ground
within and outside the government have drawn different conclusions. Rather than
destroying morale, it may well transform the fortunes of his supporters and his
organisation in the long-term. Nearly 2 decades since Abdallah Ocalan’s arrest,
the Kurdish Question remains unresolved by Turkey. Apparently cosmetic accommodations has been by Ankara since then despite the clear fact of the impossibility of
its suppression. However the collapse of Iraq following US invasion has
effectively granted self-governing Iraqi Kurdistan a lifeline.
Nigeria has not made any tangible
gain from this event. One watt of electricity is not added and one litres of
clean water is not accessed in the country. Rather instability continues to
dodge the country in a situation created and sustained by incompetence of the ruling
elite. Apparently, the rank and file of the state are clinging on due
to unfettered access to liquid resources, material incentives and privileges.
Therefore in the absence of a credible resolution of generations-long Nigeria problem, the abduction of a person with a foreign passport in a 3rd country will only exacerbate the situation by highlighting ineffectiveness of the government. Over time the state will be seen to have grappled more than it can chew as its inability to stem the ever growing centrifugal forces as they continue to gain ground towards wider legitimacy.
