Jonathan Nwokpor
Ethnic prejudice is to blame for the prolonged detention of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, according to Labour Party chieftain, Kenneth Okonkwo.
Okonkwo made this claim in an Arise TV interview on Wednesday that ZINGTIE monitored.
Recall that after his extradition from Kenya in June 2021, the head of IPOB has been under the Department of State Services’ (DSS) detention.
At the federal high court, terrorism-related allegations have been brought against him at the moment.
Kanu’s release has been demanded, particularly by stakeholders from the southeast.
President Bola Tinubu was asked in June by fifty members of the House of Representatives to order the release of Kanu.
In an additional move to secure Nnamdi Kanu’s release, governors united under the auspices of the South-East Governors’ Forum decided to meet with Tinubu on Tuesday.
The number of gunmen enforcing a sit-at-home order on Mondays with violence in order to demand Kanu’s release has increased in the South-East.
According to Okonkwo, Kanu’s arrest is the result of “ethnic bias,” even though he hasn’t committed any more serious crimes than other separatists whose court cases have been dropped.
“Nnamdi Kanu has not done anything that other people from other zones have done.
“We know about Sunday Igboho of the Yoruba nation agitator. We know of the Boko Haram people who say that they want a different country where Western education is an abomination.
“These people have been released, not just that they have been released; in the case of Boko Haram, they have been reassimilated into society and given plum jobs.
“Why is Nnamdi Kanu’s case different? There is an ethnic and some unnecessary bias that is keeping that man in jail.
“The government should be wise enough to release this man. You can release him conditionally or unconditionally.
“As a lawyer, I have watched the legal issues very clearly, and I saw that even in the courts, from the high court to the supreme court, there are discordant tunes amongst them.
“Even in the issue of bail, some of the tiers of the court have granted him bail. Even in the issue of the charges, some tiers of the court have quashed all the charges.
“So, you can see that the government has a lot of places it can stand to release the young man and bring peace to the South-East.
“He is now more like a political prisoner. The longer Nnamdi Kanu is in prison, the taller he becomes and the shorter the government becomes,” he said.
The Nollywood veteran turned politician pleaded with the federal government to release Kanu in the same manner that it has other separatists in order to “take the intelligent way out.”
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