President Muhammadu Buhari says the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra leader, Nnamdi Kanu cannot be released until he defends himself in court.
Gatekeepers News reports that President Buhari says Nnamdi Kanu, should defend himself in court for peddling false information about his administration while the IPOB leader was overseas.
President Buhari stated this in an exclusive interview aired on Channels Television on Wednesday night monitored by Gatekeepers News.
This revelation has, therefore, shattered the hopes of some respected Igbo elders led by the Minister of Aviation in the First Republic, Mbazulike Amaechi, who visited the President in Aso Rock and requested the unconditional release of the detained secessionist leader.
During the visit on November 19, 2021, Gatekeepers News reported that President Buhari while addressing the respected Igbo leaders as regards their request said. “You’ve made an extremely difficult demand on me as leader of this country. The implication of your request is very serious … I will consider it.”
However, the President during the television interview on Wednesday night said, “There is one institution that I wouldn’t interfere with, that is the judiciary, Kanu’s case is with the judiciary but what I wonder is when Kanu was safely in Europe, abusing this administration and mentioning too many things, I thought he wants to come and defend himself on the accusations.
“So, we are giving him an opportunity to defend himself in our system, not to be abusing us from Europe as if he was not a Nigerian. Let him come here with us and then criticise us here. Nigerians know that I don’t interfere with the judiciary, let him be listened to. But those who are saying that he should be released, no, we cannot release him.”
When asked about the possibility of a political solution, Buhari said, “There is a possibility of political solution. If people behave themselves, all well and good but you can’t go to a foreign country and keep on sending incorrect economic and security problems (sic) against our country and thinking that you would not account for what you have been doing. Let him (Kanu) account for what he has been doing.”
Kanu, the 54-year-old indigene of Abia State, Southeast Nigeria was first arrested in 2017 for demanding the secession of the zone from the Nigerian State.
However, he jumped bail in June 2018 before leaving for the United Kingdom, though he said that he fled because his life was no longer safe in Nigeria.
On June 29, 2021, Gatekeepers News reported that the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN), at a press briefing in Abuja, announced that the re-arrest of the IPOB leader in a foreign country and extradited to Nigeria through Kanu’s lawyers said he was re-arrested in Kenya and whisked to Nigeria.
Upon his re-arrest, the secessionist was re-arraigned before Justice Binta Nyako for terrorism-related charges brought against him by the AGF office. He has since been remanded in the custody of the Department of State Services in Abuja while his trial is to continue on January 18, 2022.
