Bruce Fein, the International Counsel of the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, has renewed the call for his immediate release from over two years of detention.
In an open letter addressed in Washington DC to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu yesterday, Fein called for immediate compliance with the order of the United Nations Human Rights Council Working Group on the Arbitrary Detention for Kanu's unconditional release.
In April 2022, the Federal High Court in Abuja presided over by Justice Binta Murtala Nyako, dismissed eight of the 15 charges against the Biafra secessionist leader. Also, in October 2022, the Court of Appeal headed by Jummai Sankey, struck out the remaining charges and discharged Kanu. However, the Federal Government has kept him under detention with the Directorate of State Security Service (DSS) while appealing the case with the Supreme Court.
Kanu was extraordinarily renditioned from Kenya and handed over to the Nigerian authorities in June 2021, which prompted the United Nations Human Rights Council to set up a Working Group to examine the case and issue the due directives.
Fein is capitalising on the emergence of a new leader in Nigeria, Tinubu, to renew the call for Kanu's release in the hope that the new government would be more agreeable to a peaceful settlement as opposed to former President Buhari's hard-line stance.
Fein told Tinubu: "You confront a choice between becoming a firefight or being the fire. The former would crown you with a possible Nobel Prize. The latter could consign you to Dante's Seve Circles of Hell as portrayed in his Divine Comedy. You would become a firefighter by immediately ending the criminal, illegal detention of Nnamdi Kanu as ordered by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and Nigeria's Court of Appeal over a year ago".
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The American lawyer accused the Nigerian government under Buhari of exemplifying "lawlessness, including the illegal attempted assassination, kidnapping and torture of Nnamdi Kanu" before his recapture by the Nigerian State.
According to him: "On multiple occasions, the Nigerian government denied me the right to meet with my client or to be present in the courtroom to observe Nnamdi Kanu's proceedings and to consult (but not to act as a licensed Nigerian practitioner).
"Nnamdi Kanu is every bit or more the leader of Biafrans as Nelson Mandela was for South Africa's blacks".
He pointed out that the IPOB leader is fighting for a referendum to save his people from extinction "at the hands of herdsmen terrorists and the Nigerian Armed Forces", adding that Kanu and his group have the right to peacefully agitate for self-determination under international conventions.
Urging Tinubu to chart a new course towards a peaceful resolution of the contention between Kanu and the Nigerian State, Fein implored the President: "History waits on you to do the right thing and earn your place of pride on its sacred pages".
