Timeframe: January 2017 – November 2025
Location: Port Harcourt, Abuja, DSS Detention,
Mar-a-Lago mail room
Key Actors: Nnamdi Kanu, Donald J. Trump, Lt.
Gen. Tukur Buratai (rtd), U.S. Congressmen Chris Smith & Nathaniel
Moran
Epigraph:
“We must seek allies wherever conscience still lives.”
— Kanu’s handwritten note appended to the 6 November 2025 petition
[1].
The Camera Lens
The rally was supposed to be a carnival—a sea of red MAGA-style caps in Port Harcourt celebrating Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2017. By noon, soldiers opened fire, leaving corpses draped in American flags on Nigerian soil. The images flashed across evangelical TV networks in the U.S., forging an unlikely bond between a Queens real-estate mogul-turned-president and an Igbo separatist broadcasting from exile. Eight years later, from a glass box inside the Department of State Services (DSS) headquarters, Kanu would leverage that bond in a letter that demanded Washington go “guns blazing” against Abuja’s generals.
The Disinterested Observer must recognize that Kanu’s outreach to Trump’s base predated the rendition. On 20 January 2017, IPOB organized a “Trump Solidarity Rally” in Port Harcourt, framing the American election as a prophetic sign that nationalist movements could win peacefully. Security forces responded with lethal force; Amnesty International later documented that at least 11 protesters were killed and 17 injured [2]. Kanu christened the bloodshed a covenant: “Our blood touched the Stars and Stripes.” From then on, his broadcasts increasingly referenced evangelical talking points, aligning IPOB’s struggle with global Christian persecution narratives.
Fast-forward to 2025. Detained at the DSS facility in Abuja after Justice Omotosho’s conviction, Kanu dictated a 27-page petition addressed to “Donald J. Trump, 47th President of the United States”—a nod to the U.S. election result announced weeks earlier. The letter, smuggled out through his legal team, demanded targeted Magnitsky sanctions against Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai, DSS Director-General Yusuf Bichi, and National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu for “systematic abductions and cannibalism propaganda” [3]. Kanu argued that since the Nigerian judiciary had embraced the Ker-Frisbie doctrine, only external pressure could halt the “legalized kidnapping economy.”
The petition bundled dossiers: photos from Port Harcourt 2017, the Abia High Court judgment on Python Dance, cash-flow charts showing payments to U.S. lobbying firms, and testimonies from the families of slain IPOB members. It urged Trump to “go guns blazing” diplomatically—freeze assets, revoke visas, and block arms sales unless Abuja agreed to a referendum. The phrase wasn’t subtle; it was tailored to a politician who thrives on combative imagery.
The letter may never reach Mar-a-Lago’s private desk, but its existence matters. It demonstrates that IPOB has evolved from street protests to sophisticated lawfare, fluent in the language of sanctions and congressional hearings. By tying Port Harcourt’s spilled blood to the Magnitsky Act, Kanu attempted to transform American domestic politics into a pressure valve for Nigerian dissent. Whether Trump acts or not, the petition signals to Abuja that every act of repression generates another dossier headed for an international mailbox.