Governor Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra has joined other prominent individuals and groups in calling on the Federal Government to immediately and unconditionally release the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.
The release, according to Soludo, has the capacity to end the insecurity plaguing the South-East region of the country.
Others who have called for the release of the IPOB leader include Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State, Noble Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, wife of the late Biafran leader, Mrs. Bianca Ojukwu, the Global Igbo Alliance, GIA, and the Voice from the East, VEAST, among others.
Kanu has been detained in DSS facilities since his repatriation from Kenya in June 2021. The FG has refused to release despite multiple court orders.
Recall that the Appeal Court sitting in Abuja had on October 13, discharged Kanu of all counts of terrorism charges preferred against him by the government.
This is after the UN Working Group on Human Rights and Arbitrary Detention, had in July, directed the FG to immediately and unconditionally release Kanu from the unlawful detention and pay him adequate compensation for the flagrant violation of his human rights.
The international body also indicted the Kenyan and Nigerian governments for the unlawful abduction, torture, rendition, and continued detention of the IPOB leader.
But, the Coalition of Northern Groups CNG, through its spokesperson, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, responded by urging the FG to resist and reject the UN’s directive, even as it accused IPOB and Kanu of being responsible for the orgy of violence spreading across Nigeria.
While speaking at the APGA Campaign kick-off in Awka, Soludo admitted that Kanu was central to the resolution of the insecurity devastating the South East and urged the FG to release the separatist leader unconditionally.
According to the governor, if the detained IPOB leader could not be released unconditionally, he should be released to him as he is ready to stand surety for him.
“I am making a passionate appeal to the federal government to release Mazi Nnamdi Kanu unconditionally. If he cannot be released unconditionally, I want him released to me and I will stand surety for him”, Soludo said in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Christian Aburime.
The statement further quoted the governor as saying: “We need Nnamdi Kanu in the roundtable conversation to discuss the insecurity in the South East. We must end insecurity in this region and we need Nnamdi Kanu to be around”.
