Produce Kanu in court to de-escalate tension in South East, CSO tells AGF

A civil society group, Foundation for Environmental Rights Advocacy and Development (FENRAD), has called on the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN), to produce leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB0, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, in court come October 21, 2021.

The date has been fixed for the preliminary hearing of Kanu’s case after the Directorate for State Security (DSS) failed to produce him before the Justice Binta Nyako court on July 26, 2021.

FENRAD also demanded that Kanu be given a fair hearing as is in tandem with his rights, saying that it would help de-escalate tension in the South East.

The group recalled that the failure to produce the IPOB leader in court in July escalated the tension in the South East as many of Kanu’s supporters feared that their leader had come to harm.

FENRAD, in a statement signed by its Executive Director, Comrade Nelson Nnanna Nwafor, and Head, Corporate Accountability and Human Rights Enforcement, Barr. Akande Femisi, regretted that since the operation leading to Kanu’s interception in a foreign country, IPOB had declared ‘sit-at-home’ every Monday in the entire South East as a protest measure against the continued detention of its leader.

It said that though the separatists came out themselves to cancel the sit-at-home order, it was much like closing the stable door after the horse had bolted.

The group lamented the attack on businesses and properties in the region by all manner of persons acting as sit-at-home enforcers.

While noting that Kanu’s arrest did not follow the required diplomatic protocols and international law instruments to which Nigeria was a signatory, the group said: “In the words of the Attorney General, ‘Kanu was intercepted’ and ‘rearrested’ in an undisclosed country after he fled Nigeria following military attack, during the operation codenamed ‘Python Dance’, on his home and father’s palace at Afara Ibeku, Umuahia while still answering to allegations preferred against him bordering on treasonable felony.

“Detained Kanu who now faces an eleven-count charge since his ‘re-arrest’ and trial by an Abuja-based court on June 29, 2021, where also his case was adjourned until July 26, has never made a court appearance.

“”His team of lawyers initially lamented lack of access to their client at the DSS facility, a situation which led one of his lawyers, Maxwell Opara, to file a fresh suit against the DSS over rights abuse when the lawyer was forced to remove his wears, including medicated glasses.”

The group observed that South East region, according to its sources, has been worse hit with loss of billions in terms of revenue and inflows, even as education in the region got affected since WAEC candidates were sacked from school on a particular Monday.

“The situation escalated to the extent where non-state actors could declare a sit-at-home order from numerous sources, including the grapevine. As it appears now, governments at all levels – both at federal and regional – had failed to address this problem, creating in the process, needless tension and economic problems in a hitherto calm region.

“FENRAD believes leadership failure at the region, among its five regional governors of the Southeast, produced Kanu who manages Radio Biafra, a media house the federal government, after failing to jam, says pours out expletives and hate materials against the federation.

“In a recent interview by Malami, the AGF himself hinted at a possible emergency proclamation over Anambra to enable INEC conduct election in a state that, in addition to call for secession, had been marred by killings and threats to life with governorship election less than a month away.

“FENRAD condemns such statement by Malami, given the security situation in Zamfara, Kaduna, Plateau states and even Katsina, the home state of the president himself, all for which emergency has not been declared in the face of abduction of school children by bandits and senseless killings by Boko Haram.

“The Foundation calls on the AGF to produce Kanu in court on October 21, 2021, allow him a fair hearing as is in tandem with his rights. The detention of Kanu has not served a win-win for the region or the government and so if this situation continues, the tension in the region will escalate the more.

“Against the backdrop of marginalization of the Igbo and other groups in Nigeria’s South, Kanu formed and now leads IPOB, a group seeking for the plebiscitary restoration of the sovereign state of Biafra, an apparent attempt to restore a short-lived Republic that was declared by Military Governor, Lt. Col. Chukwuemeka Odimegwu Ojukwu, in May 1967, after killings of Easterners in other parts of the country resulting in a thirty-month civil war. Today, if the situation is not well managed, 1967 could be here again.”

FENRAD maintained that tension in the Southeast or in any part of the country was not in the best interest of the federal government and does not serve the nation well.