The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has warned the Federal Government of Nigeria to desist from using newspaper publications to conduct litigation and prosecution of pending court cases involving its leader, Nnamdi Kanu.

“They should come to the law court to defend their record. Let the strength of their evidence speak for them rather than rely on cheap propaganda. Cases are won and lost in the law courts not on the pages of newspapers,” IPOB said in a statement issued on Monday by its Media and Publicity Secretary, Emma Powerful.

The Biafra agitators also condemned the recent application submitted to the ECOWAS Court by the government seeking to stop the ongoing human rights enforcement process.

IPOB observed that it has become customary for the government to abuse and violate human rights at will and when confronted with their deeds in a competent court of law, “they resort to blackmail, cheap lies, misinformation and sometimes inducing the certain sections of the media to help them sway public opinion against victims of their cruel regime. Instead of addressing the substance of the charges against them before ECOWAS Court for nearly two years now, they chose their favourite method of trial by media and smear campaign.”

It recalled that the case of abuse of fundamental human rights by President Muhammadu Buhari’s regime brought by the leader of IPOB at the ECOWAS Court has been pending for two years, with the government employing all manner of delay tactics to frustrate the case.

“Now they are holding Nnamdi Kanu in their custody, having denied such publicly, they have finally woken up to ask the court to dismiss the charges against them after sanctioning and conducting the kidnapping raid in Afaraukwu on the 14th of September 2017. It will be fair to assume, going by the antics of this government, that their primary reason for the murderous raid on the home of the IPOB leader, was to remove him from circulation and truncate all legal matters involving him.”

IPOB further wondered why the government didn’t bother to attend ECOWAS Court throughout the period Nnamdi Kanu was out on bail or in prison, alleging that “they resorted to intimidating the courts, first with announcement of withdrawal of funding for ECOWAS Court, when that didn’t work they embarked on their favorite adjournment after adjournment strategy. Since this didn’t work and Mazi Nnamdi Kanu went to Ohafia to announce publicly he'd be attending court on the 17th of October 2017 with 2 million men, the powers that be raided his house and abducted him.”

The separatists also claimed that the government organised Operation Python Dance as a cover to kidnap their leader. “They planned it in such a way that they will be the one to approach the courts to claim Kanu jumped bail in order to deflect world attention from their disgraceful record of human rights abuses which ECOWAS Court was bound to expose.”

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