Barrister Aloy Ejimakor, one of the lawyers representing the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu has said the continued detention of the IPOB leader is akin to humiliating 70 million Igbo people in the country.
Ejimakor said this in a tweet made on Friday, in which he also noted that it would be difficult to separate Igbo people from Kanu.
He said, “If you think you can separate MAZI NNAMDI KANU from Ndigbo, think again because it’s impossible. The two are – like Siamese twins – joined together FOREVER. So, detaining #MNK amounts to virtually detaining and humiliating 70 million Igbos. That’s impolitic and dicey to boot.”
Ejimakor earlier said that the detention of the IPOB leader was not based on the law of the land but on the politics of tribe and ethnicity.
In March, Ejimakor tweeted that the detention of the separatist leader based on the politics of tribe would tear Nigeria apart sooner than later as the Nigerian government cannot have it both ways.
“A politics that’s based on tribe and ethnicity is doomed to tear a country apart” – Barack Obama.
“The continued detention of #MNK is not based on law but on the same politics of tribe that will surely tear Nigeria apart, sooner than later. You can’t have it both ways. Never!” he had said.
Kanu has been in the custody of the Department of the State Services (DSS) since June 2021 after he was arrested in Kenya and renditioned by the Nigerian government.
The Court of Appeal on October 13, 2022 in its judgment discharged and acquitted Kanu of all the charges levelled against him by the Nigerian government and ordered his immediate and unconditional release from detention. However, he has remained in detention as the government objected to the Appeal Court ruling.
