IPOB Elders to FG: Release Nnamdi Kanu now to forestall being humiliated

As the interception and re-arraignment of the Leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu continues to generate controversy; a group of elders of IPOB has issued a warning to the Federal Government to ensure the overall safety of the IPOB leader now in the facilities of the Department of State Security (DSS) is compromised.

The group, which spoke under the aegis of the Concerned Elders of IPOB, said on Sunday shortly after its meeting at Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s house in Afaraukwu, Ibeku in Umuahia North that rumours of his failing health was disturbing, stressing that the federal government may not be able to handle the consequence should anything adverse befalls him.

Therefore asked the Federal Government to release Mazi Nnamdi Kanu to save their face and avoid being humiliated nationally and international “because you, by the act, have committed some serious diplomatic blunders that will continue to hunt you and bring catastrophic consequences to the administration international.

The leader of the group, Elder Ebere Agonsi who spoke on behalf of the group stated that Muhammadu Buhari’s government has not come out clean on what it means by interception and how “our son Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was intercepted in Kenya against all known international laws and diplomacy.”

The IPOB Elders came from Abia, Imo, Rivers, Enugu and Ebonyi States for the meeting. Agonsi said, “We’re here to know what Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, a freedom fighter and activist, did to warrant his abduction and torture in both Kenya and Nigeria against all known rules international rule of engagement.

“He was blindfolded and chained like a common criminal. The Nigerian and Kenyan authorities should tell us where it is written in international law even in the laws of both countries that a freedom fighter and human rights activist should so be treated.

“He was in Kenya on transit and was humiliated, abducted, tortured and blindfolded and bundled into Nigeria like the case of Umaru Dikko, former Transport Minister under the administration of President Shehu Shagari in 1984 where Major General Muhammadu Buhari was also involved.

“We’re worried about the complicity of President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya over the abduction of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, a freedom fighter and his forceful return to Nigeria when in the actual fact he, Uhuru Kenyatta, should have protected our brother because his late father and former President of that country, Jomo Kenyatta, a freedom fighter was given asylum in Enugu in the 1960s when his life was threatened by the colonialists.

“A Street was even named after him (Kenyatta Street). What a way of paying back a good deed! We also want to know the reason for the criminal silence of Britain, where Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is a naturalised citizen.

“If these countries believe that he’s into gunrunning, then we want to be shown the receipt for the payment guns as well as the receipts of their clearance by the Nigerian Customs”, he declared.

The Elders through Agonsi, therefore, called on the United Nations, United States, United Kingdom, European Union and other world bodies to ask Buhari’s led government to release Nnamdi Kanu unconditionally.

“Let the government explain what it means by interception. Where it is written in international law and whether Kanu is an international criminal whose human rights should be so violated and abused without anyone raising an eyebrow.

“That’s the kind of human rights abuses Nigerians have been subjected to since 2015 when Buhari took over the governance of the country. He violates national and international laws with impunity”, the group lamented.

On July 26, 2021, the adjourned date of the trial, the elders stated that they will maintain a stoic silence over the event of that day, adding, “We’ll watch the proceedings from our standpoint and take a collective decision on what next to do after that”.

“We’re demanding for his unconditional release because you cannot stand on illegality to perpetuate legality. How can you try somebody that you kidnapped? Under which law does operate?” they asked.

(Daily Independent)