Leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, has petitioned the President of the Court of Appeal, seeking that a date be fixed to hear the appeal challenging the Exparte Order proscribing IPOB.
Kanu in a letter dated November 9, expressed grief that several IPOB members and sympathisers were illegally held without trial under inhuman conditions in various security cells across the country.
He said that the delay in hearing the appeal challenging the unilateral proscription of IPOB was the reason the Federal Government and its agencies had continued to treat members of the pro-Biafra movement as terrorists.
Kanu who has remained in solitary confinement at the Abuja headquarters of the Department of State Services, DSS, since June 2021 when he was extraordinarily renditioned from Kenya, decried the plight of the affected victims of illegal detention.
The letter, a copy of which was made available read: “My lord, I am reliably informed by the lawyers engaged by IPOB that so many Igbo men, women and youths who profess or sympathize with IPOB are currently held in detention in various cells and without trial or court orders. Notorious of these detention centres are the WAWA Military Barracks cells in Kanji, Niger State; Tiger Base Police Barracks in Owerri, Imo State; State Security Service cell in Anambra, Enugu and Rivers State to mention a few.
“Some of those so detained have gotten orders and judgments of court for their release or even production in court and yet the detaining authorities have refused to obey such orders.
“My lord, for the sake of salvaging what is remaining of the respect for the Rule of Law and the Constitution of Nigeria, I humbly beg you in the name of whatever you hold so dearly, to give us a date to hear Appeal No: CA/A/214/2018 challenging the Exparte Order proscribing IPOB.
“Only a clear judicial order made after hearing each party can have the semblance of justice in this matter. My lord, plead with you in the name of the Constitution that you swore to uphold not to stand by and watch while human beings are murdered by security agencies or made to languish in detentions without trial simply because they profess to be members of IPOB or sympathizers.
