Abuja – Senators from the Southeast Region of Nigeria on Wednesday in Abuja pleaded with President Bola Tinubu to order the release of Nnamdi Kanu, the illegally detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
The senators numbering 15 and led by a former Abia State Deputy Governor, Enyinnaya Abaribe asserted that unless Kanu is released, the social and economic activities in the southeast region will continue to be stagnant.
The senators held a closed-door meeting with the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, where the latter begged Tinubu to release Kanu.
Addressing Judiciary Correspondents immediately after the closed-door meeting, Abaribe who spoke on behalf of his colleagues lamented that the economy and social life in the Southeast had suffered enough due to the continued incarceration of the Biafra nation agitator.
The former deputy governor noted with grave concern that the peaceful demand of the detained IPOB leader had been hijacked by hoodlums and hardened criminals leading to wanton killings of innocent people, including security operatives.
He told newsmen that he had already met with Kanu at the headquarters of the Department of State Services, DSS, in Abuja on Monday and that Kanu had agreed to abide by any conditional release.
Senator Abaribe expressed optimism that once Kanu is released, the tension and acrimonies engulfing the Southeast region since 2021 when he was clamped into DSS custody would become an event of the past.
The senators therefore pleaded with Fagbemi to convey their message to President Tinubu and for the AGF to use his position to terminate all charges brought against the IPOB leader by the federal government.
Abaribe said that virtually all political leaders, religious leaders and stakeholders have unanimously agreed that Kanu be released for peace to bounce back to the region.
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 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.
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.
In 1967 Igbo leaders declared independence for the state of Biafra, but after a civil war, which led to the deaths of millions of people, the self-determination movement was defeated.
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.
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