Obi Calls For Immidiate Release Of Nnamdi Kanu
Eko Hot Blog reports that Hon. Kingsley Obi, Transition Committee Chairman of Ihiala Local Government Area of Anambra State has called for the immediate release of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.
Obi said the release of Nnamdi Kanu will go a long way to address insecurity in the Southeast region of Nigeria and also end the incessant and unnecessary Sit-At-Home orders being imposed on the region by unpatriotic elements.
He stressed that Ihiala where he is the Chief Security Officer as the local government boss has not been spared of pockets of insecurity, especially with the council secretariat complex that was set ablaze in January this year by daredevil gunmen.
Although he assured that insecurity is gradually becoming a thing of the past in Ihiala due to some strategies already yielding positive results, he declared that the release of Nnamdi Kanu will douse the situation because he believes that the insecurity in Southeast is not unconnected with the prolonged detention of the IPOB leader.
The Ihiala local government boss opined that the court has said that Nnamdi Kanu’s hands are clean and that his concern for an egalitarian society where every part of Nigeria will be treated equally and fairly is justified just like every other region involved in peaceful agitations.
Obi stressed that Ihiala indigenes wherever they are around the globe should not despair because the home front is safe now and the local government authority is tackling insecurity head-on.
Obi equally assured Ndi-Ihiala home and abroad that the government of Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo is not relenting in the war against insecurity. He said the state government is assisting very profusely in the rebuilding of the ill-fated Ihiala council secretariat burnt down by hoodlums.
Nnamdi Kanu was first arrested in 2015 under the administration of former Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.
The IPOB leader was later granted bail in April 2017. He fled the country after an invasion of his home in Afara-Ukwu, near Umuahia, Abia State, by the Nigerian military in September of that year.
He was re-arrested in Kenya and brought back to Nigeria in June 2021, about four years after he fled.
The Court of Appeal, Abuja, on 13 October 2022, held that the IPOB leader was extra-ordinarily renditioned to Nigeria and that the action was a flagrant violation of the country’s extradition treaty and a breach of his fundamental human rights.
The court, therefore, struck out the terrorism charges filed against Mr Kanu by the Nigerian government and ordered his release from the custody of the SSS.
But the government refused to release the IPOB leader, insisting that he (Kanu) could be unavailable in subsequent court proceedings if released and that his release would cause insecurity in the Southeast, where he comes from.
The government, through the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation, later appealed the court ruling and subsequently obtained an order staying the execution of the court judgment at the Supreme Court.
Several concerned groups and Igbo leaders such as Governor Charles Soludo of Anambra State, his Enugu State counterpart, Peter Mbah, and President-General of the apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, have repeatedly asked the government to release the IPOB leader.
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