Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), has said he would not plead with the Nigerian government to release him from the State Security Service (SSS) facility in Abuja.
His lawyer, Ifeanyi Ejiofor, said in a statement that Kanu revealed this on Monday when the IPOB leader’s legal team visited him at the SSS premises.
Background
Kanu was first arrested in 2015 under the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari.
The IPOB leader was later granted bail in April 2017. He fled the country after an invasion of his home in Afara-Ukwu, near Umuahia, Abia State, by the Nigerian army in September this year.
He was re-arrested in Kenya and brought back to Nigeria in June 2021, some four years after he fled the country.
The Abuja Court of Appeal, on October 13, 2022, held that the IPOB leader was extraordinarily handed over to Nigeria and that the action constituted a flagrant violation of the country’s extradition treaty and also a violation of his fundamental human rights.
Therefore, the court struck down the terrorism charges brought against Kanu by the Nigerian government and ordered his release from the SSS premises.
But the government refused to release the IPOB leader, insisting that he (Kanu) might not be available in further court proceedings if he is released and that his release would cause insecurity in the South East, where he comes from.
Subsequently, the government, through the then Federal Attorney General’s Office, appealed the judicial decision and subsequently obtained an order to suspend the execution of the judicial sentence before the Supreme Court.
On November 3, 2022, Kanu, through one of his lawyers, Mike Ozekhome, filed an appeal against the stay of the execution order with the Supreme Court.
But the court has yet to resume hearing on the appeal after repeated postponements.
‘Begging for an insult’
In November 2021, the Republic’s Chief Aviation Minister Mbazulike Amaechi led a delegation of prominent Igbo leaders to then Nigerian President Buhari, asking him to release Kanu.
But Buhari rejected the request.
Amechi would later die in 2022, at the age of 91.
During a visit by his legal team on Monday, Kanu said he would not beg the Nigerian government to release him at this time because that would be “an insult to the memory” of Amaechi, who led the delegation that appealed for his release. .
The IPOB leader said Amechi, despite his old age and failing health, repeatedly traveled from the southeast to Abuja, begging the government to honor his “last wish” but was “treated with disdain” by the government.
“Therefore, Onyendu Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is of the firm opinion that he need not beg the Federal Government of Nigeria to release him. The Court of Appeal has already ruled on the matter and that ruling remains sacrosanct to date,” Ejiofor said in the statement.
The lawyer called on “all people of good will” to get the Supreme Court to set a date for a “speedy hearing” of the government’s appeal against the court order that released Mr. Kanu.
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Let hear it in the comment below if you do have an opinion on this; ‘Why I won’t beg the Nigerian government to release me’ – Nnamdi Kanu