Nnamdi Kanu: You Don’t Win Cases In Newspapers, IPOB Tells FG

The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has chided the federal government over its alleged attempt to frustrate the suit instituted by the proscribed body on the enforcement of human rights before the Community Court of West Africa (ECOWAS Court).

“Nigeria should stop running to the pages of newspapers to conduct litigation and prosecution, they should come to the law court to defend their record. Let the strength of their evidence speak for them rather than relying on cheap propaganda. Cases are won and lost in the law courts not on the pages of newspapers,” IPOB said in a statement on Monday.

The IPOB alleged that the Federal Government of Nigeria and her agents were seeking to frustrate the ongoing human rights enforcement process, stating that the present regime “when confronted with their deeds in a competent court of law, they resort to blackmail, cheap lies, misinformation and sometimes inducing the certain sections of the media to help them sway public opinion against victims of their cruel regime. Instead of addressing the substance of the charges against them before ECOWAS Court for nearly two years now, they chose instead their favorite method of trial by media and senseless smear campaign.”

A statement by IPOB’s media and publicity secretary, Emma Powerful, and made available to THE WHISTLER on Monday, said, “the case of abuse of fundamental human rights by the Buhari regime brought by the leader of IPOB Mazi Nnamdi Kanu at the ECOWAS Court has been pending for two years, with the government employing all manner of delay tactics to frustrate the case.

“Now they are holding Nnamdi Kanu in their custody, having denied such publicly, they have finally woken up to ask the court to dismiss the charges against them after sanctioning and conducting the kidnapping raid in Afaraukwu on the 14th of September 2017. It will be fair to assume, going by the antics of this government that their primary reason for the murderous raid on the home of the IPOB leader, was to remove him from circulation and truncate all legal matters involving him.”

The group wondered why the government did not bother to attend ECOWAS Court throughout the period Nnamdi Kanu was out on bail or in prison?”

According to the IPOB, the “Nigerian government organised Operation Python Dance as a cover to kidnap our leader. They planned it in such a way that they will be the one to approach the courts to claim Kanu jumped bail in order to deflect world attention away from their disgraceful record of human rights abuses which ECOWAS Court was bound to expose. To the undiscerning mind, Ministry of Information sponsored media campaigns of Nnamdi Kanu has jumped bail, may appear plausible but it is a simple concocted lie. They hope to dominate the airwaves and deflect attention away from the real issue at hand which is that this Buhari regime kidnap and lock up innocent people without trial.”