A prominent chieftain of the Labour Party, Kenneth Okonkwo, has attributed the extended detention of Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, to ethnic bias.
Okonkwo made these remarks during an interview on Arise TV on Wednesday.
Kanu has been in the custody of the Department of State Services since his extradition from Kenya in June 2021. He is currently facing terrorism charges at the Federal High Court. There has been increasing pressure from stakeholders in the South-East region for Kanu’s release.
In June 2023, 50 members of the House of Representatives petitioned President Bola Tinubu to order Kanu’s release. More recently, on Tuesday, governors from the South-East Governors’ Forum resolved to meet with President Tinubu to advocate for Kanu’s release.
The South-East region has experienced heightened violence as gunmen enforce a sit-at-home order on Mondays, demanding Kanu’s freedom.
During his interview, Okonkwo argued that Kanu’s detention reflects “ethnic bias,” pointing out that Kanu’s actions are not more severe than those of other separatists whose cases have been resolved or dismissed. He stated, “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.”
Okonkwo questioned why Kanu’s situation is different, suggesting that there is an “ethnic and some unnecessary bias that is keeping that man in jail.” He urged the federal government to “take the intelligent way out” and release Kanu, either conditionally or unconditionally, as a step towards peace in the South-East. He added, “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.”
