Prominent Igbo Leaders Visit Nnamdi Kanu in Kuje Prison Ahead of February 10 Court Hearing
Igbo leaders under the umbrella of Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF) have visited Nnamdi Kanu at Kuje prison, Abuja.
The leaders say their visit is the quest to secure the release of the detained leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB)
The ADF are also contemplating a political resolution of the matter with the federal authorities.
Those who visited Kanu are ADF president; Professor Uzodinma Nwala, chairman federal character committee; Mr Max Ozoaka, assistant legal adviser; Mr Max Alaeto, acting administrative secretary; Mr Uzo Anyaso and member; Mr Dickson Isaac Chidera.
In a statement issued on Sunday, February 5 on the group’s meeting with Kanu, ADF publicity secretary, Colonel Justino Ezeoke (rtd) described the treatment of Kanu and the reaction to the current agitation for Biafra as discriminatory when compared to the attitude of the government to Boko Haram insurgency.
Ezeoke said that while the government has sought and indeed negotiated with the Boko Haram insurgents who have killed thousands of civilians and security forces and destroyed millions of property, it refused to do same to IPOB which employs peaceful and non-violent methods of agitation.
He accused the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari of unwilling to negotiate or even to dialogue with IPOB.
Part of the statement read: “The unrelenting spread of national and global sympathy for his release is premised on the fact that his campaign for the Biafra cause is both non-violent and does not violate any known national or international laws, but rather is protected by the fundamental constitutional rights of freedom of speech and political agitation, guaranteed even by the Nigerian Constitution.
“Given the national and global reactions against Nnamdi Kanu’s unlawful detention, one would expect the democratically-elected government of President Buhari to have released him long time ago, and at the same time investigate the root cause of his claims in the name of Biafra and the people of Biafra.
“It is the failure to release an unarmed non-violent political agitator that has led to several cases of shooting and killing of innocent civilians, particularly the youths and wounding of many more in several parts of the South East and South-South zones of Nigeria.”
On the meeting with Kanu in prison, ADF said it was convinced that Kanu is driven by genuine love for justice, equity and freedom.
“He represents a generation of Nigerian youths from different zones, who feel the Nigerian federation lacks the basic ingredients of democracy and rule of law, and the basic norms of a normal human society.
“The demand for renegotiating the foundations for the existence of the Nigerian federation has been a perennial agitation by all the different ethnic nationalities as well as all those who wish for a peaceful co-existence among the various ethnic nationalities in the Nigerian Federation,” the statement noted.
Meanwhile, IPOB has vowed that nothing will deter them from the restoration of Biafra nation, even as the group promised to sensitise south easterners towards its upcoming referendum.
