Nigeria’s Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, has claimed President Muhammadu Buhari will consider the interest of citizens in the calls to release the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu.
Malami stated this while appearing on NTA’s Good Morning Nigeria Show.
He said, “By way of general statements to the two issues presented: the issue relating to Kanu and by extension, IPOB, what I can tell you for certain is that the decision of the President is based fundamentally and at all times on public interest consideration.
“In the art of governance and what I have come to learn about the mind and heart of the President, Muhammadu Buhari, is to consider the 200 million as against the limited people.
“By extension, the issue of Kanu, what would as well govern the decision of the President in terms of whatever request is presented is the public interest as against the limited sectional interest of it.”
Recently, some Igbo leaders urged Buhari to grant Kanu freedom.
The elders, led by former Minister of Aviation in the First Republic, Chief Mbazulike Amaechi, had made the call during a meeting with Buhari at the State House, Abuja.
The Amaechi-led elders had urged the president to grant the IPOB leader an unconditional release.
Kanu was rearrested in June 2021 in Kenya and repatriated to Nigeria to continue his trial before an Abuja Federal High Court.
Following his repatriation, the separatist has been locked up at the Department of State Services, DSS.
The IPOB leader is facing trial before Justice Binta Nyako-led court for charges based on terrorism.
