Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN), counsel to the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to order the immediate release of Kanu as he mustn’t die in detention.
Ozekhome gave the charge in a petition dated October 3, 2022, urging President Buhari to instruct the Attorney General of the Federation to wield his powers under Section 174 of the 1999 Constitution to enter a “nolle prosequi.”
He said Buhari should release the IPOB leader through a ‘political solution’ to correct a long-standing travesty of detenting Kanu under cruel, inhuman and degrading conditions.
The lawyer argued that Kanu is standing trial for sundry offences he was granted bail.
He added that Kanu observed the terms and conditions of the bail until the men of the Nigerian Army attacked him.
He said, “It (the attack) was a state-sponsored assassination attempt on his life. As if that was not bad enough, Kanu’s subsequent sojourn in exile to seek refuge in London from where he travelled to Kenya, was brutally aborted on June 26, 2021, when he was savagely abducted, blindfolded, tortured and kept in solitary confinement for eight days in a secret location and forcibly brought back to Nigeria.
“This was carried out arbitrarily without due process and recourse to the judicial systems of Kenya, the UK and Nigeria.
“In Kenya, Kanu was tortured and made to disappear and kept out of circulation and public view in a secret facility for eight days by Kenyan authorities. It was an illegal collaboration between the Kenyan and Nigerian secret agents.”
