Kanu’s Lawyer, Family Tackle group over UN directive for his release

Following recent directive by the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council Working Group on Arbitrary Detention for the Nigerian government to unconditionally release the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, from detention and pay him appropriate compensation, and the reported subsequent reaction of the Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) saying that the UN’s directive should be disregarded and disobeyed, Kanu’s Special Counsel, Aloy Ejimakor, has described the group’s stance as contemptuous.

In his reaction, yesterday, to CNG’s position, Ejimakor, stated that the group’s call to disregard the UN’s directive amounts to an “attack on the global body and adding insult to injury.”

Fuming against the CNG position, Ejimakor urged the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) and Nigerians to censure the call and advise prompt compliance with the UN directive.

Also, Kanu’s family, in a statement dated July 30, 2022, and issued by Mazi Kanunta Kanu titled, ‘Northern Coalition Faults UN Call For Release of Nnamdi Kanu,’ described the CNG reaction to the UN directive as a meaningless diatribe that comports with self-deception and self-delusion, which have been the guiding principles of CNG since the present era.

Kanu’s family further said: “The statement by the CNG underscores the disdain and arrogance with which a section of the North (not all North) always treats anything Southern Nigerian, especially concerning Biafra land or Ndigbo.

“It is the same attitude that had informed most of the grievous errors of judgment that have manifested in the crushing insecurity ravaging the North since 2015 when shadowy Northerners began to infiltrate and infest the corridors of Federal Government of Nigeria.”

Insisting that the UN directive is as binding as any other adjudicatory opinion by the global body that led to the end of apartheid in South Africa, a referendum in Ethiopia/Eritrea, and a referendum in Kosovo and South Sudan, the Kanu family recalled that the deployment of the UN peace-keeping forces across the globe was also guided by opinions like this.

Consequently, the family called on the international community to intervene and compel Nigeria to promptly and unconditionally release Kanu and refrain from further persecution of IPOB.