On Peter Obi's Call For Kanu's Release: Premium Times And Omokri Are Guilty Of Strawman Fallacy

A few days ago, the 2023 Labour Party Presidential Candidate Mr Peter Obi in an interview made the following exact statement which Premium Times and Mr Reno Omokri clearly took out of context:

“I don't see anything,” said Mr Obi with a deep shrug, “why his continued detention. Quite frankly. Especially as the law, the courts have granted him bail. Government must obey the law. Rule of law is an intrinsic asset that we must cherish and live with. And I've said I'm going to discuss with every agitator. And I use this opportunity to pray the government to ensure that all those who are in similar conditions are released and discussed with. We are a democratic government. We shouldn't be doing things that are arbitrary and not within the law”.

Not long after that, Mr Omokri posted the following statement on his X page:

“The 'Release Nnamdi Kanu Now' statement by Peter Obi is the obituary of Peter Obi's Presidential ambition. By calling for the release of a man who made public broadcasts asking his supporters to kill Nigerian military and paramilitary forces wherever they find them and has neither apologised nor repented of that order, Peter Obi just showed his allegiance to the flag behind him in this photo and which he used for his Hero beer logo!

And by the way, anybody or group of people or movement that thinks they can intimidate me and prevent me from saying what I really believe at any point in time obviously does not know me. My body does not secrete the fear hormone!

 #TableShaker”

Premium Times also published a fact-check result in which the online news medium concluded that “the claim by Mr Obi that the Nigerian Government was detaining Mr Kanu against a court order is factually incorrect and misleading. This is because the Supreme Court overturned the ruling of the lower court in December 2023”.

See How Misleading These Statements By Premium Times And Omokri Are

The exact statements are laid out above so that we can all analyze them together.

Obi vs Omokri

Obi started by saying, “I don't see anything why his continued detention especially as the law, the courts have granted him bail”. But Omokri called this a “release Nnamdi Kanu now statement” which makes it sound like an order in the first place. Then, in the second place, Omokri forced an entirely different meaning on what Obi actually said.

For one thing, by saying “I don't see anything… why his continued detention”, Obi is clearly expressing a personal opinion on the matter rather than commanding anyone to do what he said. But, Omokri misleadingly called this a “release Nnamdi Kanu now statement”. 

Even Obi's body language (such as his shrugs) shows it's a personal opinion he is expressing. And, who is not entitled to have opinions? Yet Omokri made it look like Obi issued a categorical statement on the matter. And many Nigerians are already sheepishly believing him. Hence, this rebuttal.

Omokri has been building other arguments on this false foundation via his X Page. But, we shall have the occasions to respond to those.

SEE ALSO: "Obi Obsession" - How Reno Omokri Unwittingly Asked To Be Rejected By His Southern Nigerian Community

Obi vs Premium Times

Then, toeing a similar thinking style as Omokri, the Premium Times writers claimed that Obi had said that “the Nigerian Government was detaining Mr Kanu against a court order”. In another statement of Omokri's being quoted online but which we couldn't find on his X wall (it has probably been deleted or wrongly quoted), he is said to be challenging Obi to produce a “subsisting court order”, therefore implying wrongly that Obi used that phrase.

Let the public beware that Obi mentioned neither a court order nor a subsisting court order. Legal terms should never be used out of context and, as a lawyer and as a media house, Omokri and Premium Times should respectively have known better.

So, against the claims of either a “court order” or “a subsisting court order”, let it be on record that what Obi said is that (as a person) his frank opinion is that he does not “see” the reason for Kanu's continued detention “especially as the court has granted him bail”.

The use of the word “especially” by Obi clearly shows that he already said something before modifying it with an adverbial phrase. But both Premium Times and the words being attributed to Omokri, carefully avoided the main statement and instead laid stress on its modification, thereby giving it a protrudingly over-bloated meaning.

And, to show that this deviation is deliberate, you can see Omokri turning the modification of an already given personal opinion by Obi into a command, and Premium Times using a different phrase (court order) than Obi used which is “bail”.

Thus Both Premium Times And Omokri Are Seen To Be Using A Strawman Fallacy To Deceive The Public

A Strawman Fallacy occurs when someone misrepresents, exaggerates, or distorts another person's argument, and then responds to the distorted version instead of the original argument. This creates a misleading impression that they have addressed the original point, when in fact they have not.

It's like responding to a different statement while appearing to respond to the original statement. This fallacy is often used to avoid engaging with the actual argument, and instead, creates an easier target to attack.

As you can see from the above analysis, this is exactly what both Premium Times and Omokri have done. And, it is obviously deliberate.

Clarifying What Obi Actually Said

Given Mr Peter Obi's busy schedule, he may not have the time to respond to all whims and caprices calling his attention. Again, given his position, he was apparently trying to be politically correct in his word use. 

So, based on our principle as a media outfit that insists on truth and justice, we take up the task of clarifying what Obi obviously meant in the short response he made verbally in the live TV interview.

First off, apart from the first part of the words at issue here (which has been attended to above), let's remember that Obi also said that “government must obey the law. Rule of law is an intrinsic asset that we must cherish and live with. And I've said I'm going to discuss with every agitator. And I use this opportunity to pray the government to ensure that all those who are in similar conditions are released and discussed with. We are a democratic government. We shouldn't be doing things that are arbitrary and not within the law”.

The entire statement should be analyzed together. Otherwise taking it apart would be like taking a dissected rat as a live pulsating rat. So, let's start with the statement that “the law, the courts” have granted Nnamdi Kanu bail. Is this not true?

Of course it is true. Even Premium Times and Omokri have acknowledged this too. 

For example, below is a screenshot of a tweet Omokri shared only last year in February (kindly permit the placement. It's to make it clear enough on mobile).

Also, in its fact-check result, Premium Times agreed that “the Court of Appeal, Abuja, on 13 October 2022, held that the IPOB leader was extraordinarily renditioned to Nigeria and that the action was a flagrant violation of the country's extradition treaty and breach of his fundamental human rights”. From this, Premium Times further admitted that “the court therefore struck out the terrorism charges filed against Mr Kanu by the Nigerian government and ordered his release from the facility of the State Security Service”.

“But about one week later,” Premium Times further admitted, “the government, through the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation, appealed the court ruling and subsequently obtained a Supreme Court order staying its execution”

The question is, what happened during the “about one week” between the Court of Appeal ruling and the time the Federal Government appealed the ruling and got a stay of execution? Answer: the Federal Government actually disobeyed an order of the Court of Appeal for a whole week or more going by Premium Times' own words.

So, what Obi was careful not to say out loud, and what Premium Times and Omokri were afraid he meant is what actually happened: The Federal Government refused to obey a competent court for a whole week and then had the time to turn the hand of justice. As a result, everything else that followed (such as the stay of execution obtained from the Supreme Court) clearly lacks legality.

Therefore, when Obi would say that “government must obey the law”, the Government actually failed to obey the law. Again, when Obi would say that “we are a democratic government (state). We shouldn't be doing things that are arbitrary and not within the law”, it is actually true that the Federal Government arbitrarily acted against democratic principles by disobeying the Court of Appeal for a whole week.

This is besides the utter arbitrariness of the extraordinary rendition based on which the Court of Appeal gave its order and the attack on Kanu's house by Federal Government soldiers while a competent court gave him sick leave. And there are more of such cases of the Federal Government going arbitrarily outside democratic norms as regards Kanu's case.

Then Comes The Dirty Hands Principle

There is a principle in jurisprudence called "Clean Hands Doctrine" or "Dirty Hands Doctrine" depending on where it is applied. In this case, it is Dirty Hands Doctrine. And, it's all a part of the law.

This doctrine states that a government or authority that violates the law or acts unethically cannot enforce the law or punish someone else for similar violations. The idea is that the government or authority lacks the moral authority and credibility to enforce the law when they themselves have failed to comply with it.

In other words, if the government has "dirty hands" by violating the law, they cannot accuse someone else of having "dirty hands" for doing the same thing. 

Now, as you can see, even within the context of the Nigerian legal system, the Nigerian Government lost the right to hold Kanu as soon as it disobeyed one of Nigeria’s competent courts in regard to Kanu. Then, beyond the Nigerian legal system, the Nigerian Government lost the moral right to hold Kanu as soon as it disobeyed its own extradition treaty as enshrined in international law. So, who says that Peter Obi was wrong for implying that the Nigerian Government disobeyed a court ruling and arbitrarily flouted democratic principles in relation to Kanu?

We are open to discuss this right here below in an absolutely transparent manner. Thank you beloved Nigerians.