Biafra: Kanu seeks Britain’s intervention over continued detention
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NIGERIA: APPARENTLY unable to bear his continued incarceration, the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, has begged the British government to help regain his freedom.
Kanu told the Prime Minister David Cameron administration that his prolonged detention should be looked into urgently as his rights are being violated by the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.
His cry for help was contained in a petition sent through his counsel, Ifeanyi Ejiofor, where he chronicled his travails since arrest and prosecution in court.
The self-acclaimed IPOB leader in the letter dated March 24, 2016, said he was a victim of travesty of justice, but explained that he was ready for fair trial, rather than the persecution he was currently facing in the hands of the Federal Government.
Kanu, who is a British citizen, in his letter addressed to the British High Commissioner in Nigeria, informed the envoy that he was wrongly arrested and, therefore, needed his rights, privileges and protections to be guaranteed under the British laws and conventions.
“We are therefore constrained in the circumstance, to formally notify the British Government vide this medium, of our well informed reservations, and apprehension, that Our Client is undergoing persecution in the charge above referred, and deliberate design by the persecutors to frustrate every effort of the Defense team aimed at giving Our Client a fair trial,” the lawyer wrote on behalf of Kanu, who was nabbed on October 14, 2015 and has been in detention since then.
While making the case before the British government, Ejiofor said his client had prior been granted freedom by the court, but the Department of State Security Services refused to let him go, even as he indicted Buhari too on the travails.
The counsel said: “Our reservations on the President’s comment was (sic) underpinned by the findings made in the ruling delivered on the 29th day of February 2016, by Hon. Justice John Tsoho, wherein Our Client and the two other Defendants were denied bail.”
He said: “Recalled that on December 29, 2015, during the Presidential Media Chat, the President told the whole world that Nnamdi Kanu cannot be granted bail, alleging that he came into the country without a valid travelling passport.
“This pronouncement was roundly condemned by both local and international commentators. His pronouncement was viewed as a clear usurpation of the functions and powers of the judiciary.”
Kanu, who is in the vanguard of those demanding for the Republic of Biafra and was the Director of Radio Biafra and television before his arrest, with Benjamin Madubugwu and David Nwawuisi, were held on six-count treason charge by the Federal Government.
The trio were accused of committing treasonable felony, an offence punishable under Section 41(C) of the Criminal Code Act, CAP C38 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria.
