IPOB: Kanu mustn’t die in detention, Ozekhome tell Buhari

Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN), counsel for the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, has appealed to President, Muhammadu Buhari to immediately release Kanu from detention through a ‘political solution.’

According to PUNCH report In a petition dated October 3, 2022, the lawyer urged Buhari to order the immediate release of Kanu by instructing the Attorney General of the Federation to wield his powers under Section 174 of the 1999 Constitution to enter a “nolle prosequi.”

According to him, the appeal is to enable Buhari to correct a long-standing travesty of the continued detention of Kanu by the Nigerian Government under cruel, inhuman and degrading conditions.

He noted that Kanu is currently standing trial at the Federal High Court for sundry offences, for which he was granted bail and he observed the terms and conditions of the bail until he was attacked by the men of the Nigerian Army.

He said, “It (the attack) was a state-sponsored assassination attempt on his life. As if that was not bad enough, Kanu’s subsequent sojourn in exile to seek refuge in London from where he travelled to Kenya, was brutally aborted on June 26, 2021, when he was savagely abducted, blindfolded, tortured and kept in solitary confinement for eight days in a secret location and forcibly brought back to Nigeria.

This was carried out arbitrarily without due process and recourse to the judicial systems of Kenya, the UK, and Nigeria.

“In Kenya, Kanu was tortured and made to disappear and kept out of circulation and public view in a secret facility for eight days by Kenyan authorities. It was an illegal collaboration between the Kenyan and Nigerian secret agents.”

Ozekhome argued that Kanu’s continued detention violates all known laws and norms of both international and domestic laws, including Nigeria’s obligations under binding international treaties.