A chieftain of the Labour Party, Kenneth Okonkwo, has insinuated that the continued detention of leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, is because he is Igbo
Okonkwo said this on Wednesday, when he was featured on NewsDay, a programme of Arise TV.
Kanu has been detained by the Department of State Services (DSS) since his extradition from Kenya in June 2021. He was subsequently charged with terrorism and has been facing trial at the Federal High Court in Abuja.
Politicians from the South-east have in recent weeks intensified dialogues for the release of the IPOB leader. Last month, 50 members of the House of Representatives asked President Bola Tinubu to order Kanu’s release.
On Tuesday, governors under the umbrella of the South-East Governors’ Forum also resolved to meet with Tinubu, to seek the release of the separatist leader.
Skeaping on the programme, Okonkwo claimed that Kanu is being held in detention due to “ethnic bias,”. He submitted that others such as Yoruba Nation agitator, Sunday Igboho, and rehabilitated terrorists who committed worse crimes, are all free.
“Nnamdi Kanu has not done anything that other people from other zones have done,” he said.
“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.”
