Tension is building up in the South-East and parts of South-South geopolitical zones following the continued detention of the leader of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and Director Radio Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu who was, last Wednesday, discharged and acquitted by a Magistrate’s Court in Abuja of the treason preferred on him by the Department of State Security Services (DSS).

It will be recalled that Justice Ademola Adeniyi of a Federal High Court, also in Abuja, had, last Thursday, ordered Kanu’s immediate release from DSS detention.

Nnamdi was arrested on October 17, by DSS operatives, shortly after he arrived Nigeria from his base in the United Kingdom, which prompted over one month protests after he was arraigned secretly at Wuse 2 Magistrate’s Court presided over by Justice Shuiabu, who granted him bail on October 19.

The leader of Movement for the Actualization of the State of Biafra (MASSOB), Uchenna Madu, has accused the DSS of deliberately continuing to detain Nnamdi Kanu against two court rulings ordering the security agency to release their leader unconditionally. He said: “The continued detention of Nnamdi Kanu by DSS after both Magistrate, Federal High courts have discharged and acquitted him of all the frivolous charges against him shows that Nigerian judiciary is not independent. The independency of the three arms of government is a complete sham, which portrays Nigeria as an undemocratic state.

“It is a sign of frustration on Nigeria because of Nnamdi Kanu, agitators for Biafra represents the very truth Nigeria knows but always avoids to identify with it. I know Nnamdi Kanu. He is a real Biafran, who can never succumb to intimidation, deviate or compromise.

“His illegal detention will worsen the already battered image of Nigeria. MAASOB will never relent in identifying with Nnamdi Kanu. We shall continue to press for his release with every legitimate action supported, backed by internationally recongised law, decrees and charters. MASSOB must maintain our non-violent stance, although we have found out that the DSS wants to re-arraign him on fresh trumped-up charges which we will resist.”

On its part, the youth wing of Ohanaeze Ndigbo has warned that the continued detention of the leader Nnamdi Kanu by the DDS, against court order, could spell doom for Nigeria.

The youth group under the banner of Ohanaeze Youth Council (OYC) expressed shock that four days after the Federal High Court, Abuja gave ordered Kanu’s unconditional release, the DSS had continued to hold him.

In a statement by its National President of OYC, Mazi Okechukwu Isiguzoro, condemned the attitude of the DSS over the detained Biafra activist.

His words: “Nigeria is sitting on tenterhook; the looming danger of renewed protests by Kanu’s followers, sympathisers and Biafra agitators is capable of consuming Nigeria and should be avoided. For us, Ohanaeze Youth Council, we are pleading with the Federal Government to, as a matter of sacrifice for the unity of Nigeria, release Nnamdi Kanu.

“This call has become necessary because it will be extremely difficult for us to continue to calm his followers and sympathisers whose see his detention as a provocation. We know how much effort it took us to prevail on IPOB and MASSOB members to stop their protests before the court ruling, and we don’t know what to tell them again as Kanu is still in detention four days after he was discharge by a court of competent jurisdiction.

“President Muhammadu Buhari should help save the country from unnecessary tension by prevailing on the DSS to release Kanu since the courts have discharged and acquitted him.”

OYC also called on the international community to intervene and save Nigeria from plunging into another avoidable civil disturbance instead of coming with aids to refugee camps.

The youth group appealed to Buhari, to prevail on the DSS to free the detained IPOB leader in the interest of peace.

•Adappted from a Vanguard report. Photo shows Nnamdi Kanu.

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