The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) have cautioned the presidential hopefuls running to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari in May 2023 not to use their imprisoned leader Nnamdi Kanu in their political advertising before the election that month.
In a statement released on Wednesday, IPOB’s media and publicity secretary, Emma Powerful, issued the warning in response to Atiku Abubakar’s pledge to release Kanu unconditionally if elected president of the People Democratic Party (PDP).
Atiku has a plan to restore peace in the South-East, according to Professor Obiora Okonkwo, Director-General of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council, and freeing the IPOB leader is one of those plans.
Okonkwo made this assertion barely 48 hours that Kanu’s international spokesperson and American counsel, Bruce Fein called on Atiku, Bola Tinubu and Peter Obi to promise to free the self-determination leader from the custody of the Department of State Services (DSS) if any of them becomes next country’s leader.
Reacting to Okonkwo’s statement, IPOB said PDP should demand that the federal government release their leader and not use it in the campaign.
“IPOB leadership wish to state that its leader should on no account be used as a political bargaining chip for Nigerian election,” the statement said.
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It said, “Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has been judicially declared an innocent man and that follows that he must be released from his continued illegal detention and torture by this present government of APC. We do not expect anything contrary but that the judgement of the Court of Appeal is implemented.
“Moreover the leadership of IPOB wants to inform the PDP that in as much as we have no issue with their statement, their focus should be to demand that the Nigerian government obey the judgement of their own court.
“Our demand has and will remain consistent irrespective of which person or party is occupying Aso Rock the Nigerian seat of power. Our Self Determination agitation is our inalienable right and that is the reason we have demanded a referendum which is a democratic process to enable Biafrans to determine their fate and decide where they wish to belong whether in Nigeria or in a free and Sovereign Biafran nation.”
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