By Adadareporters
Barr Aloy Ejimakor, special counsel to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, Monday, alerted the leadership of Ohanaeze Ndigbo that the continued detention of his client at the custody of the Department of State Services is because of the federal government’s refusal to abide by court orders which hitherto acquitted and discharged Kanu.
Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, is being detained since 2021 over alleged jumping bail, treason and running a proscribed group. He was arrested and forcefully brought to Nigeria in a manner Nigeria’s Court of Appeals described as extra-ordinary rendition, having violated international laws and conventions. The court went ahead to acquit and discharge him, but former president Muhammad Buhari ignored the ruling.
Recall that a high of Abia State ruled in favour of Kanu that he did not jump bail in 2017 in a suit filed by Ejimakor. The proscription of IPOB is also being challenged at the Court of Appeals. The UN Opinion Group on Human Rights Violations also ordered Kanu’s freedom, maintaining that self-actualization quest of Kanu is his inalienable right according to global conventions.
Ejimakor, via his X page, stated that, “In meeting with Tinubu, Ohanaeze should be strictly guided by the fact that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu would not be in detention if Nigeria abided by the law in not subjecting him to extraordinary rendition; or complied with the court orders to release him. He’s the victim, not the villain.”
Recall that Ohanaeze Ndigbo had Saturday stated that its leadership would meet with Tinubu to discuss Kanu’s freedom.
Ohanaeze’s president general, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, said during a courtesy visit to the leadership of the Supreme Council of Nigeria Traditional Rulers, Southeast chapter led by the president, HRM Eze Iheanyichukwu Nwokenna of Abia State, that, “We intend to see President Tinubu on issues concerning the Igbo ethnic group, more especially the need to release Mazi Nnamdi Kanu of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB. His continual detention is escalating insecurity in the southeast.
“After he’s released, let us now see any person or group that will be instigating insecurity or crisis in Igboland using his name or detention.
“Some people and groups are illegally feasting on his popularity and detention just to cause unnecessary trouble and problems in the entire southeast and for their selfish interests. There must be peace and stability in Igboland. Immediate release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu will restore sanity.”
Ejimakor had earlier argued that the Nigerian government’s possible heeding the calls from various quarters for the release of Mr Kanu would not be an ‘act of mercy’ given that different courts had already ordered his release.
Premium Times quoted him as saying that, “The matter of releasing Nnamdi Kanu is not an act of mercy, executive clemency or even amnesty. Instead, it’s an act of doing the right by simply complying with the subsisting municipal court order or the standing international tribunal decision that independently declared his detention illegal.
“Even the inception of his detention, following the rendition, was also not legal, because extraordinary rendition is an egregious state crime that destroys the legal capacity of the state (Nigeria) to detain the victim of the rendition, in addition to also complicating the prosecutorial powers of the state against such victim.
“Thus, Nnamdi Kanu’s release from detention vested from the very day this judgment was given, and the days are still counting to this day because the judgment is extant and not stayed. The narrative that freeing him (Kanu) lies exclusively in the hands of the Supreme Court is fundamentally false.
“It is also malicious, prejudicial and profoundly injurious to Nnamdi Kanu’s legal interest, especially as it offers the authorities the umbrage and easy political cover to persist in the illegal detention of Nnamdi Kanu.”
