Nnamdi Kanu’s international attorney, Mr. Bruce Fein, requested on Tuesday that Dr. Richard Montgomery, the British high commissioner to Nigeria, take the necessary actions to secure the immediate release of the detained Indigenous People of Biafra leader in accordance with the Working Group’s opinion on arbitrary detention.
Kanu is being held at the Abuja office of the Department of State Services on suspicion of treason, leading an outlawed organisation, and evading bail in 2017. Courts have, however, found in his favour, concluding that he did not skip bail. The FG has not yet followed these judgements.
In a statement sent to our reporter by Barr Aloy Ejimakor, Kanu’s special attorney, Fein implored Montgomery not to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor by utilising his influence to get Nigeria to comply with numerous rulings for Mr. Kanu’s release.
Fein maintained in his letter to the high commissioner, headed “Re: Nnamdi Kanu-Biafra sovereignty,” that Kanu was acting in accordance with his human rights when he fought for the liberation of his people within Nigeria’s political framework.
He claims that since Nigeria’s independence from British colonial control began in 1960, the country has faced difficulties. By handing back plundered artefacts taken by marauding British soldiers from Benin City, the UK has attempted to partially atone for its involvement in the racial Scramble for Africa.
“Yet, something far more precious than Nigerian artwork was stolen by the Brits. A cynical divide-and-conquer colonial strategy was used by the United Kingdom to herd Biafrans under a single national banner in 1914, stealing the right to self-determination and government by the consent of the governed. A global right for many peoples to self-determination was engraved into marble during the American Revolution in 1776.
READ ALSO: inflammatory statements: Lawyer petitions the ICC about Tinubu spokesperson Onanuga
He referred to the Biafran War, which took many Igbo lives, and said it was evidence of the diversity among Igbos, Hausa-Fulani, and Yorubas. He claimed that this inconsistency was what drove Kanu to seek for an independent state where his people’s rights would be protected.
Kanu is a citizen of the United Kingdom, the letter stated. He is the IPOB’s leader. Via nonviolent channels of restitution, it seeks to secure the 70 million Biafrans’ right to self-determination, which the British stole more than a century ago.
“The radical Muslim government of Nigeria, which is dominated by the Fulani, attempted to assassinate Mr. Kanu in his home in 2017 because he supported peaceful self-determination. The Nigerian government has been ordered by Nigerian courts to compensate Mr. Kanu for its attempted assassination.
“In June 2021, Nigeria and Kenya planned to kidnap and torture Mr. Kanu in Nairobi before bringing him inexplicably to Abuja. The Nigerian government keeps Mr. Kanu imprisoned there in solitary confinement for an undetermined period of time without a trial on fabricated treason accusations.
He recalled that the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued an Opinion on July 20, 2022, finding that Mr. Kanu’s detention violated sixteen international human rights covenants. As a result, the Working Group ordered Mr. Kanu’s “immediate and unconditional release and payment of reparations,” noting that the Nigerian government “remains in contempt of the Working Group’s order more than eight months after its issuance.”
Fein chastised the outgoing British high commissioner to Nigeria for not doing enough to secure Kanu’s release and urged the new one to safeguard the UK citizen.
He said, “Your predecessor idled rather than challenge the Government of Nigeria with its legal responsibility to immediately free a UK person. She depended on the Biafran quislings in the Southeast and the lawless Fulani-controlled administration to embrace Orwellian lies about Nnamdi Kanu and Biafra.
Invoking “the coming change in the Nigerian administration and Kanu’s rapidly deteriorating health,” Fein sought to meet with the high commissioner “to explore possibilities to achieve Nigeria’s compliance with the Working Group’s order for the immediate and unconditional release of Mr. Kanu.”
Whistler
