PUBLIC REBUTTAL BY BARRISTER CHRISTOPHER CHIDERA
Title: “The Nation’s Warped Obsession with Nnamdi Kanu: When Journalism Becomes a Crime Scene”
Date: 26 October 2025
1. Enough of The Nation’s Hypocrisy
Let’s stop pretending. The Nation newspaper has become the public-relations wing of Nigeria’s authoritarian elite. Their latest garbage, “The Nnamdi Kanu Affair”, written by someone hiding behind the alias Palladium, is not journalism — it’s a hate letter to truth, decency, and the Igbo conscience.
They call Kanu “delusional” and “megalomaniacal,” as if cheap adjectives can erase the fact that the man was kidnapped in Kenya, tortured, and dumped in Abuja in clear violation of international law. They say he “formed militias,” yet they can’t produce one conviction, one judgment, one line of evidence. The Nation’s editors are allergic to facts — their weapon of choice is character assassination.
2. A Newspaper with an Inferiority Complex:
You can smell the insecurity oozing from that column. The Nation cannot stand the idea that, despite being locked up for years in harsh detention, Nnamdi Kanu an Igbo man of exceptional courage still speaks like a free man — confident, defiant, and unbroken.
That frightens them. They’ve thrown the entire state apparatus at one man — DSS torture, endless adjournments, biased judges — yet his spirit refuses to bow. So, they resort to what cowards do best: write poison editorials to impress their political paymasters.
3. A Rotten Mind Behind the Pen:
Whoever this Palladium is — he’s no journalist. He’s a frustrated propagandist with a pen dipped in envy.
He says Kanu’s trial should continue because he’s “disruptive.” Excuse me? A man who was abducted across borders, whose case was dismissed by the Court of Appeal, and who is being retried under a repealed law, is the one being disruptive?
That’s not legal reasoning; that’s mental laziness dressed as analysis. If Palladium ever opened a law book, he’d know that a trial founded on illegality is void from day one. But he’d rather write emotional tantrums than read Section 36 of the Constitution.
4. Weaponising the Media Against Justice:
The Nation has turned its pages into a toxic courtroom, where the accused is always guilty and the state is always right.
Their editors play judge, jury, and executioner — all without evidence, all without conscience.
They tell the courts not to “let Kanu drive his own defence.” What kind of media house publicly urges judges to curtail a defendant’s rights? That’s not journalism. That’s incitement to judicial misconduct.
They’ve forgotten that journalism without fairness is just another form of tyranny. And when a newspaper joins hands with tyranny, it becomes an accessory to oppression.
5. The Fear Behind Their Rhetoric:
Let’s be honest — The Nation’s hostility comes from fear.
They fear that Kanu’s defiance exposes the smallness of their masters.
They fear that every court document he files, every word he speaks in open court, tears apart the false narrative that Nigeria is a democracy.
They fear that one day, the world will look back and see that it wasn’t Kanu who disgraced Nigeria — it was those who jailed him, lied about him, and wrote this kind of intellectual garbage to justify it.
6. My Message to The Nation and Their Anonymous Writer:
You want to talk about “megalomania”?
Try looking in the mirror. It takes industrial-strength arrogance for a paid columnist to call a man “violent” while defending the people who kidnapped him in violation of international law.
You call him “histrionic”? He’s standing in court alone, arguing the law you refuse to read.
You call him “delusional”? He’s quoting treaties you don’t even know exist.
You call him “dangerous”? He’s using a Constitution you’ve long since sold to your advertisers.
That’s not delusion. That’s courage.
And you hate him for it.
Let’s make it plain: The Nation has chosen sides — against justice, against truth, and against decency.
They’re free to keep attacking, but history has a long memory.
When the files are unsealed and the courts of men are silent, the court of conscience will still sit.
On that day, the names of those who defended the law will be remembered.
And those who wrote lies to please power will be remembered too — as collaborators.
Signed,
Barrister Christopher Chidera
Legal Practitioner & Public Affairs Advocate
Abuja • 26 October 2025
