Timeframe: September 2017
Location: Afaraukwu, Umuahia, Abia State
Key Actors: Nnamdi Kanu, The Nigerian Army (82 Division), Eze Israel Kanu, Justice Benson Anya
Epigraph:
“The invasion of the Applicant’s home… by the Respondents or their agents is illegal, unlawful, unconstitutional and amounts to infringement of the Applicant’s fundamental right to life.”
— Justice Benson Anya, High Court of Abia State Judgment (January 19, 2022) [1].
Between the “Call for Arms” in Los Angeles and the arrival of the tanks in Umuahia, there was a brief, volatile season of freedom. Just weeks after the World Igbo Congress in Los Angeles (Sept 2015), Kanu returned to Nigeria. On October 14, 2015, he was arrested by the DSS at the Golden Tulip Hotel in Lagos (as detailed in Chapter 8). He spent the next 18 months in detention (Kuje Prison).
In April 2017, after 18 months in Kuje Prison, Nnamdi Kanu was granted bail by Justice Binta Nyako based on “extreme health grounds”. The conditions were draconian: he was forbidden from being in a crowd of more than ten people; he was forbidden from granting interviews.
Kanu did not just break these conditions; he shattered them.
Kanu returned to his father’s palace in Afaraukwu. Between April and September 2017, he famously violated these conditions—holding massive rallies, granting interviews, and walking the streets like a de facto Head of State He returned to the South East not as a defendant, but as a conquering hero. For five months, the “Prince” tested the patience of the State. He held rallies attended by thousands. He granted interviews to Al Jazeera. He established the Biafra Secret Service (BSS)—a symbolic, unarmed paramilitary group that paraded in broad daylight.
To the Nigerian State, this was an intolerable provocation. A man standing trial for Treason was inspecting guards of honor. The “State” had released a prisoner, and the prisoner was now running a parallel government.
The Generals in Abuja decided they would not wait for the next court date in October. They would not send the Police to revoke his Court bail. They would send the 82nd Division to “dance” in his backyard. Operation Python Dance
The Camera Lens
The road to Afaraukwu is narrow, lined with palm trees and the modest bungalows of a royal community. On September 10, 2017, the peace of this ancient kingdom was shattered by the roar of armored personnel carriers (APCs).
The Nigerian Army had launched “Operation Python Dance II” (Egwu Eke II). Officially, it was a training exercise to combat kidnapping. But the coordinates of the “training” were curiously precise: the palace of Eze Israel Kanu, the father of the IPOB leader.
Nnamdi Kanu was inside, on bail, awaiting his next court date. He was not in a camp; he was in his bedroom. The palace was not a barracks; it was a home.
The video footage from that day is chaotic. It shows soldiers in full combat gear advancing on the gate. It captures the sound of live ammunition cracking through the air. It records the panic of civilians—unarmed palace guards and family members—scrambling for cover as bullets chipped the walls of the royal residence.
This was not an arrest. An arrest requires a warrant and handcuffs. This was a siege.
The Disinterested Observer must analyze the legality of the military’s action. Nnamdi Kanu was a defendant on bail. He was under the jurisdiction of the Federal High Court. If he had violated his bail conditions, the legal procedure was for the police to arrest him, not for the army to invade his home with heavy artillery.
The Forensic Evidence:
The Casualty Count: Reports from civil society groups and IPOB indicate that at least 28 people were killed during the raid and the subsequent crackdown in the vicinity [2].
The Judicial Verdict: Five years later, the Abia State High Court would rule that the
military invasion was an assassination attempt. The court ordered the Federal Government to pay N1 billion in damages and issue a public apology [1].
The State’s defense—that they were “testing military equipment”—collapsed under scrutiny. You do not test APCs in a residential compound unless the objective is kinetic.
For months after the smoke cleared, the question on everyone’s lips was: Where is Nnamdi Kanu?
The government claimed he was “on the run.” His lawyers claimed he had been killed or “disappeared” by the Army. The uncertainty created a vacuum that was filled by myth. To his followers, he became a supernatural figure—the man who walked through walls, the leader who could not be killed by bullets.
The Reality:
Forensic reconstruction suggests a less supernatural but equally dramatic escape. Kanu fled through the back exits of the palace as the soldiers breached the front, aided by his guards who stayed behind to hold the line. He moved through the bush, crossed the creeks, and eventually made his way out of Nigeria.
This “Vanishing” had a catastrophic strategic effect. It removed Kanu from the reach of the Nigerian judiciary and placed him beyond the control of local elders. He was now a ghost, free to radicalize the movement from the safety of Israel and later, the UK.
The State had aimed to kill the man; instead, they birthed the Legend.
Court: High Court of Abia State, Umuahia Judicial Division.
Suit No: HIN/FR.14/2021.
Date: January 19, 2022.
Presiding Judge: Hon. Justice Benson C. Anya.
The Ruling:
“It is the view of this Court that the agent of the Respondents set out as pythons to terminate the life of the Applicant… The invasion was disproportionate and amounted to an attempt to assassinate the Applicant.” [1]
The Consequence:
This judgment legally redefined Kanu’s flight. He did not “jump bail” as a fugitive from justice; he fled for his life from an illegal assassination attempt. This distinction destroys the government’s argument for revoking his bail.
The Closing Argument
Operation Python Dance was the single greatest strategic error of the Buhari administration regarding the Biafra agitation.
By deploying the army against a man on bail, the State violated the sanctity of its own judicial process. They turned a legal defendant into a victim of state terror.
More importantly, the invasion radicalized the “Biafra Security Service” (BSS), which was largely unarmed, and paved the way for the formation of the Eastern Security Network (ESN)—a fully armed paramilitary wing.
The Python danced, but it bit the wrong target. It killed the peace process.
How does a non-violent movement respond when the State brings tanks to a knife fight?
[2] Amnesty International. (2025). Nigeria: A decade of impunity: Attacks and unlawful killings in South-East Nigeria. (Contextualizing the casualties of Python Dance). [URL: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/afr44/9363/2025/en/]
[3] Premium Times. (2022). Court orders Nigerian govt to pay Nnamdi Kanu N1 billion, issue apology. [URL:
https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/506643-just-in-court-orders-nigerian-govt-to- pay-nnamdi-kanu-n1-billion-issue-apology.html]