Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has slammed Igbo leaders, saying they will pay a heavy price for abandoning the leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) Nnamdi Kanu.
HURIWA claims it is in the interests of Igbo political elites, the political movers and shakers and those who control the levers of political and economic powers on behalf of the Igbo nation that nothing evil happens to Nnamdi Kanu.
HURIWA made the claims against the backdrops of frightening revelations by Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mike Ozekhome and Counsel to the detained Indigenous People of Biafra Activist, Mr. Ifeanyi Ejiofor about the rapidly deteriorating health conditions of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu their client.
“We are urging the political elites to have a change of heart and galvanise support for the clarion calls on President Muhammadu Buhari to end the vicious circles of persecution and dehumanising episodes that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is subjected to as a PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE under the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari who has not treated other regional charismatic defenders from the North such as Sheikh Gumi the way the administration has maltreated Nnamdi Kanu and his followers in the South East,” HURIWA said in a statement by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko
The Rights group alleged that the political elite of the South East has not sufficiently spoken out to convince President Muhammadu Buhari to end the persistent violation of the constitutionally guaranteed human Rights of Nnamdi Kanu and thousands of his followers jailed, chastised, dehumanised and killed extrajudicially by government-controlled armed security forces.
HURIWA said it has for the umpteenth time, appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to authorise the Nigerian Medical Association (NBA) to send a medical delegation to see what can be done to deliver immediate medical relief in detention for Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.
The rights group wonders why President Buhari has refused to listen to wise counsel to free Mazi Nnamdi Kanu based on medical grounds.
HURIWA commended the lawyers to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu for their passionate interest to see that the security situation in the South East does not deteriorate to uncontrollable limits by quickly alerting the world about the disconcerting and shocking deterioration of the health of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.
The group called on Igbo elites who abandoned Nnamdi Kanu to chase after national honours from the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari to abandon their cowardly hypocrisy and self-centredness for the good of the good people of Igboland.
“It is said that those elites who have more to lose should any crisis arise in South East if anything negative should happen to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu are simply not doing anything to put pressures on President Buhari to release Nnamdi Kanu at least based on health grounds.
These elites will invariably lose out of political power because if the South East becomes ungovernable, where else will they exercise authority as political leaders of South East.?”
HURIWA recalled that Chief Mike Ozekhome, counsel to Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), on Monday asked President Muhammadu Buhari to order the release of his client.
Kanu has been in DSS custody for over 14 months since his arrest and extradition from Kenya to Nigeria. He is on trial for a treasonable felony.
In July, the United Nation Human Rights Council Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, in a 16-page report, indicted both Nigerian and Kenyan governments for the arrest, torture and continued detention of the IPOB leader.
In a letter on Monday, Ozekhome called on Buhari to order Kanu’s immediate release through a more productive “political solution”.
Ozekhome said Buhari can order Kanu’s release in line with section 174, which gives the attorney-general of the federation (AGF) powers to “discontinue at any stage before judgment is delivered any such criminal proceedings instituted or undertaken by him or any other authority or person”.
” You can do this by instructing the Honourable Attorney-General of the Federation to wield his powers under section 174 of the 1999 Constitution to enter a “nolle prosequi”.
This will immediately halt the present restlessness and sits-at-home mantra currently ravaging the South East and paralysing business and normal life,” Ozekhome said.
HURIWA applauded Chief Ozekhome and called for the immediate freedom of Nnamdi Kanu and his followers jailed for the last 7 years only for publicly canvassing self-determination which is backed by the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights.
