Mr Kanu is facing trial on terrorism charges levelled against by then-President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration over his call and agitation for a sovereign state of Biafra.
The health condition of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the illegally-detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), has reportedly worsened after Nigeria’s secret police, the Department of State Services (DSS) rejected requests to move him to Heartland Cardiovascular Consultants Limited for treatment and close examination, his lawyer said Monday.
One of Kanu’s lawyers, Maxwell Opara, who made this known in a video recording posted on X on Monday, also disclosed that the cardiologist who had been treating Nnamdi Kanu – told the DSS that he could not be visiting its office every time, every week to be treating the self-determination activist.
Opara was overheard in the video saying: “Just came back from DSS now where I went to visit Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. The condition I saw him is not something to write home about.
“The cardiologist who has been treating Nnamdi Kanu has told the DSS that he cannot be coming to DSS every time, every week to be treating Nnamdi Kanu, that it is against their medical ethics. He is a US trained Cardiovascular Consultant and he said that he needs to have Nnamdi Kanu in his clinic; at least to monitor him for two weeks. But the DSS said no that except it is through court order.
“I can’t see the reason while the judiciary should be allowed themselves to be used by the executive. We have seen the best international practices that once somebody is sick even in the prison and if it is discovered that the person needed to have best medical practitioner, they will release the person. But the one of Nnamdi Kanu the case is quite different.
“Is it because he is an Igbo? Is it because he is Nnamdi Kanu? It is only a living that can face trial. Look at a letter written to the DSS. This letter was written by Heartland Cardiovascular Consultants Limited, signed by Onye Godfrey Achilihu, the medical director, and he is a fellow American College of Cardiology.
“And in the letter he said, “Based on symptoms communicated to me, I strongly recommend that he be brought to my clinic so that a proper and focused examination, including all necessary tests will be carried out to address his complaints.”
“Now after the letter was rejected, the man said he will not be going to DSS. Dear Nigerians; is that the way to treat somebody? The judiciary is no longer the judiciary we know because here is somebody you refused to release him, you refused to reinstate his bail, Supreme Court said he never jumped bail, you refused to send him to prison where we have professionals. You detained him in DSS custody and they don’t have adequate medical facility to address his case. I must continue to talk whether they like it or not.”
Meanwhile, the letter signed by Onye Godfrey Achilihu, Interventional Cardiologist, which was addressed to the Director General, Department of State Services, Abuja, is dated 16/07/2024.
It partly read: “Re: Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.
“I am a United States Fellowship trained Interventional cardiologist, practicing in Abuja. I was accredited to visit him today on health grounds but the DSS could not attend to this request.
“Based on symptoms communicated to me, I strongly recommend that he be brought to my clinic so that a proper and focused examination, including all necessary tests will be carried out to address his complaints.”
The DSS could not be reached for comment.
IPOB was formed in 2012 as a peaceful movement, but launched an armed wing in south-eastern Nigeria in 2020, saying it was doing so to defend the Igbo ethnic group.
Mr Kanu is facing trial on terrorism charges levelled against by then-President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration over his call and agitation for a sovereign state of Biafra. He was extraordinarily renditioned from Kenya in June 2021 by former President Buhari’s government and has remained in detention since then.
Mr Kanu’s initial arrest in 2015 triggered protests by his supporters. In 2017, Justice Binta Nyako of a Federal High Court in Abuja granted Kanu bail.
Upon his release, a military invasion of his ancestral home in Umuahia, Abia State, in September 2017, forced him into exile, hence he did not attend his trial on the next scheduled date and thereafter. From then till June 2021 when he was abducted from Kenya and was subjected to “extraordinary rendition”, and brought back to Nigeria, there has been a robust public debate as to whether he jumped bail or not.
But, the Appeal Court had discharged and acquitted Kanu of all terrorism charges. This judgment was later overturned by the Supreme Court which transferred the case back to the Federal High Court.
Mr Kanu, who holds a UK passport, has remained in prison, despite the Appeal Court ordering his release in October 2022 after ruling that he had been illegally arrested abroad.
Kanu’s attorney, Aloy Ejimakor, in January, clarified that the Supreme Court had settled the controversy on whether Kanu jumped bail or not.
The attorney said the Supreme Court also clarified that Kanu’s bail “should not have been revoked”.
In the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the judgment delivered in December 2023, the apex court declared that Kanu did not jump bail.
IPOB wants a group of states in the south-east of Nigeria, which mostly comprises the Igbo ethnic group, to break away from the country and form an independent nation called Biafra.
The secessionist campaign first gained impetus in the 1960s, when an Igbo army officer, Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, declared the birth of Biafra following killings of south-easterners in northern Nigeria.
But that attempt at secession ended after a bloody three-year war that led to more than a million deaths from fighting, starvation and a lack of medical care.
But the idea of Biafra has never gone away and despite arrests of his members, Mr Kanu’s movement has seen a recent swell in its numbers.
All people have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development, according to the United Nations.
Essentially, the right to self-determination is the right of a people to determine its own destiny. In particular, the principle allows a people to choose its own political status and to determine its own form of economic, cultural and social development. Exercise of this right can result in a variety of different outcomes ranging from political independence through to full integration within a state.