Biafra: Kanu cries out over Switzerland’s refusal to grant family members visa
The younger brother to the elusive leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu, Prince Emmanuel Kanu, has berated the Embassy of Switzerland in Abuja for allegedly denying travelling visa to members of the family, following an invitation by the United Nations, UN, to the 116th United Nations Human Rights Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances.
Kanu’s family members were invited by UN as key witnesses of the mass murder allegedly committed by the Nigerian security operatives when the family compound was invaded on September 14, 2017, during the Operation Python Dance ll conducted by the Nigerian Army.
Speaking, Kanu said apart from the family, “key IPOB members who witnessed the genocide at Afaraukwu were also denied visas.”
In a statement, Kanu accused the Embassy of “conspiracy, collusion and unholy dealings with Abuja to frustrate the family and help the Nigerian state escape punishment.”
He claimed that some “Amazonians fleeing persecutions in the Cameroons were equally denied visa by the Swiss Embassy,” alleging that “it was a clear indication that the Embassy was colluding with oppressive administrations to suppress freedom fighters.”
Kanu decried what he termed “bad faith of the Swiss Embassy in constituting itself to an impediment to the family’s bid to get justice over the unprovoked invasion of the family house and the disappearance of our beloved ones including our parents, Eze Israel Kanu, the traditional ruler of Afaraukwu community and his wife, Lolo Sally Kanu.
“Some of our family members who were invited by the United Nations could not understand why they should be denied visas. Some Amazonians who fled Cameroun to Nigeria who were also invited to the United Nations by this same working group were also denied visas.
“For the fact that you house the world body does not give you the right to deny victims and key eyewitnesses of torture and genocide visas even when the same world body invited them.”