Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), has been detained in solitary confinement by Nigeria’s secret police since he was abducted from Nairobi airport in Kenya in June 2021. Although he has requested consular assistance from the British government, his appeals have failed.
Sources close to the Presidency revealed that President Bola Tinubu would have ordered Kanu’s release, but some politicians advised against doing so before the Imo State governorship election scheduled for November 11, 2023. They claimed that Kanu’s release could have political implications in the Southeast region.
Similarly, Sunday Igboho, another separatist leader, who was in Cotonou, Republic of Benin, has been granted bail by a Benin Republic court. He disclosed that he had “fulfilled all the legal conditions attached to my bail few years back and I am coming home to Nigeria, my country of origin, any moment from now.”
Despite the Court of Appeal discharging Kanu of the counts filed against him, he has remained in solitary confinement at the facility of the Department of State Services. He has appealed to the Court of Appeal not to consider adjourning the hearing on IPOB’s appeal challenging its proscription as a terrorist organization by the Nigerian government.
The Nigerian government proscribed IPOB in 2018, over its alleged killings and other atrocities in its agitation for the actualization of the Biafra Nation. However, IPOB has appealed to the Court of Appeal to set aside the order of the lower court and the motion ex parte, insisting that the trial court erred in law.
