The Ohanaeze Ndigbo has warned of dire consequences over the bench warrant issued against Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), by a Federal High Court in Abuja.

Justice Binta Nyako issued the order on Thursday following Kanu’s continued absence from court. Kanu escaped a brutal military crackdown on his family home in Afaraukwu, Abia State, and escaped to Israel, from where he returned to his base in the United Kingdom.

Reacting through a statement signed by Mazi Okechukwu Isiguzoro, President-General, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council Worldwide, and Mazi Okwu Nnabuike, Secretary-General, the youth wing of the apex Igbo organisation said on Friday that Justice Binta Nyako’s order would spell doom if carried out.

The group said it received the arrest order with “rude shock and disbelief, after weighing the implications such action may destabilise the fragile peace that has returned to Southern Nigeria, especially South-East and South-South after the ugly but sad experience(s) witnessed during his first arrest, and subsequently the untimely death of innocent Igbo youths and women that characterised his detention.”

It, however, urged the IPOB to “resist any temptation of allowing Nnamdi Kanu to return to Nigeria, as the healing process of those slaughtered during the first arrest and python Dance has not been completed.”

Continuing, the statement said: “There’s no need to escalate the tension already established in the South-East over the menace of herdsmen ravaging some parts of Igboland; there’s no need to compound our loss by allowing Nnamdi Kanu return now until Igbo Christian and traditional leaders intervene in the process.

“We are pleading with President Muhammadu Buhari as the father of the nation to grant presidential pardon to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, as a way to show compassion to Ndigbo. We are aware of the presidential release of over 500 inmates of suspected Boko Haram detainees in Kano Prisons.

“Presidential pardon to all Biafra agitators, including Nnamdi Kanu, will save a lot of billions of naira that would have been used for peacekeeping, in the imminent collapse of peace and civil disturbances that will follow immediately if he is re-arrested.

“Such billions can be used on alternative road projects in southeast, because Aba, Port Harcourt, Asaba, Abakiliki, Enugu, Onitsha, Nnewi and Owerri may become ungovernable as we witnessed during the last arrest of Nnamdi Kanu.”

The Ohanaeze youths further stated that “there is better time re-unite every part Nigeria than now; Carrot and Stick method of late President Musa Yar’Adua should be adopted in handling the delicate case of Nnamdi Kanu; his re-arrest order is an ill wind that will blow no one any good.”

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