By Our Correspondent
Nnamdi Kanu”s younger brother, Prince Kanunta Kanu, Wednesday, described as ‘defamatory’ the purported sacking of Barr Aloy Ejimakor as the special counsel to the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra.
Emma Powerful, head of IPOB’s media, in a release, Tuesday, stated that, “The IPOB leadership henceforth declares Barr Ejimakor a persona non grata. He must desist from parading himself as IPOB and Mazi Nnamdi Kanu counsel from this day.”
Ejimakor became an object of criticisms by Powerful after he released a handwritten letter of Nnamdi Kanu to Simon Ekpa, acclaimed prime minister of Biafra Republic Government in Exile, which ordered the stoppage of sit-at-home in Southeast. Kanu had described sitting at home as destroying businesses of Ndigbo, hence should be stopped.
Ekpa had of late been issuing incessant sit-at-home orders, including the ignored two weeks’ order from July ending to the middle of August, 2023.
Kanunta wrote, “Emma Powerful’s release is false and defamatory in its entirety. Barr Ejimakor has not been sacked. For avoidance of doubt, Barr Ejimakor physically met with Kanu on 24th July, 2023. And on 27 August, Kanu met with my younger sibling. The main event of both visitations was the Standing Order of Kanu’s ban on sit-at-home which he has issued through Barr Ejimakor on 24th July, 2023.
“Ejimakor was not hired or retained by this Emma Powerful or Department of State of IPOB (DOS) which Powerful stated he was speaking for. It was Mazi Nnamdi Kanu (in his official capacity as supreme leader of IPOB) that hired Barr Ejimakor in late 2017.
“Unless Emma Powerful and DOS believe that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has become vegetative (as they once rumoured), how can they suddenly begin to make decisions for him?”
Kanunta said Mr Powerful and the DOS were jealous of how Kanu’s sit-at-home message which Ejimakor released had ended all Ekpa’s orders. He recalled that both Powerful and DOS were being propelled by ‘the same animus and jealousy that had propelled them to mess up the first direct order issued by Mazi Nnamdi Kanu in 2021, terminating the sit-at-home.
“The DOS was driven mad with jealousy and envy that the order was delivered to, and announced by my humble self (Prince Kingsley Kanunta Kanu) instead of the DOS, and for this reason alone the DOS sabotaged that initial effort by Mazi Nnamdi Kanu to terminate the sit-at-home.
“Kanu referred to this sabotage in the latest order he issued to Barrister Aloy Ejimakor and noted how it had caused a rift between the DOS and myself to this day. It is a shame on the DOS that they are again levying the same fratricidal war on Barrister Ejimakor for the same silly reason they had traduced me back in 2021.
“They have become more vicious in their rage against Barrister Ejimakor, simply because Barrister Ejimakor delivered his message so effectively that it has finally ended the sit-at-home as Mazi Nnamdi Kanu had long desired, but which the pathetic DOS could not accomplish despite Mazi Nnamdi Kanu giving them several opportunities to do so.”
On the recent interview granted by Ejimakor to AriseTV, Kanu clarified that, “Barrister Ejimakor’s remarks on the AriseTV interview of 28th July were taken out of context and deliberately twisted to provide a silly justification to lynch him. In the interview, Barrister Ejimakor – when he was talking about followers of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and Simon Ekpa – responded along these lines that ‘when the followers (whether they are of Mazi Kanu or of Ekpa) act for good, bad or ugly and do so in the name of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, it is then attributed to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu just because he is the supreme leader of IPOB; and such is unfair on Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, hence his reason for issuing the sit-at-home termination order to separate the APPLES from the ORANGES’.
“The DOS that is twisting these intelligent remarks out of context should ask themselves these questions: Who are the Apples and Oranges if Barr Ejimakor really meant that there is absolutely no difference in followership? Who are those that call themselves disciples that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu had alluded to in the sit-at-home termination order? And why would Mazi Nnamdi Kanu issue the order to Simon Ekpa if he considers Simon as someone that is not under his command and control?
“In the said DOS press release, Emma Powerful made a Freudian slip when he unwittingly stated in the first paragraph that: ‘we agree that some misguided supporters of Simon Ekpa are followers of Mazi Nnamdi KANU being under the illusion that Simon is working for the release of Mazi KANU’. This statement by Emma Powerful is exactly another way of paraphrasing or interpreting the import or real meaning of what Barrister Ejimakor had said on the question of followership. So, what is the beef with DOS if not jealousy, envy and all manners of twisted tendencies?
“Since Mazi Nnamdi Kanu retained the legal services of Barrister Ejimakor in late 2017, it has been a season of landmark victories single-handedly won by him. The first was in March 2018 before a continental tribunal which reversed the proscription of IPOB and its listing as a terrorist group. The second was in January 2022 which exonerated Mazi Nnamdi from jumping bail and awarded him one billion naira and an order for published apologies. The third was in October 2022 that declared Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s rendition and detention unconstitutional.
“The fourth was also in October 2022 where the Appeal Court discharged Mazi Nnamdi Kanu mainly on the ‘extraordinary rendition’ argument that the whole world knows was pioneered and written by Barr Ejimakor alone. And the fifth is the United Nations Opinion in which Barr Ejimakor actively worked with Attorney Bruce Fein in providing legal and other assistance that proved crucial in winning the case.
“Barrister Ejimakor is also directly and single-handedly handling other complex Briefs, including the one before the British High Commission and the African Union. And he is the only counsel appointed by Mazi Nnamdi Kanu to liaise with lawyers and others handling MNK/IPOB cases in America, in the UK, in Kenya and the United Nations. There are also four major cases (that are still pending) that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu personally assigned to him to handle alone for the IPOB.
“The DOS should be asked this question: If you claim that you have sacked Barrister Ejimakor, have you appointed another Special Counsel to take his place and handle these tough cases and assignments currently under his belt? Or is it that your sinister intention is to dredge up a phantom sack as a means of complicating the ability of Barrister Ejimakor to win the cases he is currently doing for Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and the real, loyal IPOB rank and file?
“It needs to be made clear that in all the cases handled by Barrister Ejimakor, the IPOB or a member of IPOB and Mazi Nnamdi are the only parties. And where IPOB is not a party, it is Mazi Nnamdi Kanu that is the party and it is only because he is the supreme leader of IPOB; so in that sense, it is still an IPOB case with Barr Ejimakor as its vanguard. Therefore, this DOS sacking of Barrister Ejimakor, even so laughable and ineffectual, is a clumsy attempt by DOS at biting its nose to spite its face. In other words, it is a senseless attempt at self-immolation of the real IPOB and we will not allow it to happen.”
