Eminent Igbo leaders visit Nnamdi Kanu in Kuje prison

- Igbo leaders under the umbrella of Alaig­bo Development Founda­tion (ADF) have visited Nnamdi Kanu at Kuje prison

- The leaders say their visit is the quest to secure the release of the detained leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB)

- The leaders are now weighing a political resolution of the matter with federal authorities

Igbo leaders under the umbrella of Alaig­bo Development Founda­tion (ADF) have visited Nnamdi Kanu at Kuje prison, Abuja.

The leaders say their visit is the quest to secure the release of the detained leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB)

The ADF are also contemplating a political resolution of the matter with the federal authorities.

Those who visited Kanu are ADF president; Professor Uzodinma Nwala, chair­man federal character commit­tee; Mr Max Ozoaka, assistant legal adviser; Mr Max Alaeto, acting administrative secretary; Mr Uzo Anyaso and member; Mr Dickson Isaac Chidera.

In a statement issued on Sun­day, February 5 on the group’s meeting with Kanu, ADF publicity secretary, Colonel Justino Ezeoke (rtd) described the treatment of Kanu and the reaction to the current agitation for Biafra as discriminato­ry when compared to the attitude of the government to Boko Har­am insurgency.

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Ezeoke said that while the gov­ernment has sought and indeed negotiated with the Boko Haram insurgents who have killed thou­sands of civilians and security forc­es and destroyed millions of prop­erty, it refused to do same to IPOB which employs peaceful and non-violent methods of agitation.

He accused the administra­tion of President Muhammadu Buhari of unwilling to negotiate or even to dialogue with IPOB.

Part of the statement read: “The unrelenting spread of na­tional and global sympathy for his release is premised on the fact that his campaign for the Biafra cause is both non-violent and does not violate any known national or in­ternational laws, but rather is pro­tected by the fundamental con­stitutional rights of freedom of speech and political agitation, guaranteed even by the Nigerian Constitution.

“Given the national and global reactions against Nnamdi Kanu’s unlawful detention, one would ex­pect the democratically-elected government of President Buha­ri to have released him long time ago, and at the same time investi­gate the root cause of his claims in the name of Biafra and the people of Biafra.

“It is the failure to release an unarmed non-violent politi­cal agitator that has led to sever­al cases of shooting and killing of innocent civilians, particularly the youths and wounding of many more in several parts of the South East and South-South zones of Ni­geria.”

On the meeting with Kanu in prison, ADF said it was convinced that Kanu is driven by genuine love for justice, equity and free­dom.

“He represents a generation of Nigerian youths from different zones, who feel the Nigerian federation lacks the ba­sic ingredients of democracy and rule of law, and the basic norms of a normal human society.

“The de­mand for renegotiating the foun­dations for the existence of the Nigerian federation has been a perennial agitation by all the dif­ferent ethnic nationalities as well as all those who wish for a peace­ful co-existence among the vari­ous ethnic nationalities in the Ni­gerian Federation,” the statement noted.

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Meanwhile, IPOB has vowed that nothing will deter them from the restoration of Biafra nation, even as the group promised to sensitise south easterners towards its upcoming referendum.