The Indigenous People of Biafra has called on the British government to embark on an “aggressive diplomatic engagement” and efforts to ensure that its leader, Nnamdi Kanu, was released unconditionally in the shortest possible time from the detention camp of the Nigerian government.
While alleging that over 300 IPOB members were currently being detained across detention camps nationwide, the separatist organisation demanded that the United Kingdom should ensure the safety and protection of its citizen in the country.
The lead lawyer to IPOB, Ifeanyi Ejiofor, raised these issues in a strongly worded letter to the British High Commissioner in Nigeria dated November 17 and titled, ‘Solitary confinement of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu (A British citizen) in the custody of the Department of State security in Re: charge NO. FHC/ABJ/CR/383/2015, Federal Republic of Nigeria V. Nnamdi Kanu’. and obtained by The PUNCH in Abuja on Friday.
The petition reads in part, “The British government is respectfully urged to do everything to protect the life of its national, our client, who, from every indication, is gripped by the vice-like, vengeful, and unrelenting stranglehold of the present Federal Government of Nigeria. Britain cannot afford to shirk the obligation it owes our client.
“We also respectfully call for an aggressive diplomatic engagement/effort to ensure that our client is released unconditionally in the shortest possible time. The Nigerian government should not be allowed to benefit from its wrongdoing. It grossly violated all international treaties it is a signatory to the moment it surreptitiously entered a sovereign state to kidnap/abduct a British national and extraordinarily renditioned him to Nigeria for a trial that is a sham.”
