Release Kanu To Restore Peace In S’East, Activist Tells FG

Ahead of today’s Supreme Court verdict on Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, the federal government has been advised to effect his release to bring back peace in South East.

A civil rights activist, Nze Kanayo Chukwumezie, made the appeal while interacting with selected journalists in Enugu.

According to him, “It has been proven over the years that the continued incarceration of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is counter-productive.

“Instead of it stopping or reducing agitations for the Sovereign State of Biafra, it heightened it and raised many splinter groups, all claiming to be working with and for him.

“He has severally debunked some of such claims but yet those groups continued with their agitations and added clear criminal activities.”

He said his position on the matter had been reviewed and arrived at by many authorities, adding that further delays in releasing him would imply that powers that be ‘are behind his ordeal’.

Quoting him, “This scenario has been reviewed by traditional rulers, elder statesmen, Association of Bishops etc, and all came to the same conclusion: ‘Release Mazi Nnamdi Kanu to bring back peace to Igboland’. Even the courts have granted him bail.

“Thus keeping him means that the powers that be do not want peace to return to Igboland. They are actually telling us that they are the ones sponsoring and fueling the unrest and insecurity in Igboland.”

He added that insecurity in Igbo land is gradually destroying ‘core Igbo values’, including reluctance of ‘our people to return home during festivities which used to be platforms for community development’.

Chukwumezie said, “Last Christmas, many Igbos celebrated in Lagos, Abuja and Asaba, among other cities, due to security concerns. This year will not be different.

“The federal government should remove the hand of the monkey from the soup and release Nnamdi Kanu to the Bishops. It is unfortunate that Chief Mbazulike Amechi is dead. He made adequate arrangements to contain feared and perceived excesses of Nnamdi Kanu before visiting former President Muhammadu Buhari to release Nnamdi Kanu to him.

“I am opportune to have an idea because a group I head was part of the whole arrangement due to deteriorating security in Igboland. We even wrote letters to Buhari to that effect.

“I say to the federal government: ‘prove that you are sincere with restoration of security in Igboland by releasing Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’.”

Kanu is being held at the custody of the Department of State Security in Abuja after being arrested in Kenya and forcefully brought to Nigeria in a matter Nigeria’s Court of Appeal ruled violated international laws. The court subsequently discharged and acquitted Kanu.

However, former President Buhari’s government refused to obey the ruling. The Supreme Court will decide today if the refusal to release him was in consonance with the law.

Kanu hitherto was charged with treason, jumping bail and running a proscribed group. Incidentally, courts of competent jurisdictions had copiously ruled in his favour, awarding damages against the FG in the process. The latest was the ruling of an Enugu State High Court that the proscription of Kanu’s IPOB by the South East Governors’ Forum amounted to ‘administrative abuse’. The court also ruled that the consequent listing of IPOB as a terrorist group by the FG amounted to violation of members’ fundamental human rights. The case was instituted by Kanu’s Special Counsel, Barr Aloy Ejimakor.