"For apparently abandoning the charismatic leader of the now proscribed Indigenous peoples of Biafra (IPOB) to face a cruel fate of prolonged languishing in excruciating pains in the detention facility of the dreaded Department of State Security (DSS), the political elite of Igbo origin have been warned that they stand to pay heavy price should the unforeseen happen to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.

HURIWA believes that it is in the self-enlightened interests of Igbo political elite, the political movers and shakers and those who control the diverse levers of political and economic powers on behalf of the Igbo nation that nothing evil should happen to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu because he is but one of the few Nigerians that command very large committed and ideological followership because of what his loyalists and supporters think are his innate and God-given talents and gifts to proffer pragmatic panacea to the lingering problems of systemic and systematic exclusion of the Igbo speaking nation from the centre of political and economic power houses of Nigeria by the powers that be.

“We are urging the political elite to have a change of heart and galvanise support for the clarion calls on President Muhammadu Buhari to end the vicious circles of persecution and dehumanising episodes that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is subjected to as a Prisoner of Conscience under the administration of President Buhari who has not treated other regional charismatic defenders from the North such as Sheikh Gumi, the way the administration has maltreated Nnamdi Kanu and his followers in the South East," HURIWA noted in a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emma Onwubiko.

Onwubiko said that the statement was coming against the backdrop of frightening revelations by Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Chief Mike Ozekhome, and Counsel to the detained IPOB leader, Mr. Ifeanyi Ejiofor, about the rapidly deteriorating health condition of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, their Client.

The rights group said the political elite of South East have not sufficiently spoken out to convince President Muhammadu Buhari to bring to a closure the persistent violations of the constitutionally guaranteed human Rights of Citizen Nnamdi Kanu and thousands of his followers jailed, chastised, dehumanised and killed extrajudicially by the government controlled armed security forces.

HURIWA has also for the umpteenth time passionately appealed to President Buhari to authorize the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) to send medical delegation to see what can be done to deliver immediate medical relief in detention for Kanu.

HURIWA said it was bewildering as to why President Buhari has refused to listen to wise counsel to free Kanu on medical grounds.

HURIWA commended the lawyers to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu for their passionate interest in seeing that the security situation in the South East does not deteriorate to uncontrollable limits by quickly alerting the world about the disconcerting and shocking deterioration of the health of Kanu.

The group therefore called on Igbo elite who abandoned Kanu to chase after national honors from the President Buhrai administration, to abandon their cowardly hypocrisy and self-centredness for the good of the good people of Igboland.

HURIWA lamented that whereas youths of South East origin from around the world and some civil groups have campaigned over the years for the release of all wrongly detained members of IPOB, including their detained leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, Igbo political elite including governors and elected and appointed federal public office holders have all but abandoned Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and are playing the Ostrich as if they are unaware of the massive and near- messianic followership that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu enjoys amongst millions of disenchanted Igbo youths.

The rights group has asked Igbo elite to wake up from slumber and save the South East from chaos, anarchy and doom that are inevitable should anything untoward happen to Kanu.

"It is said that those elite who have more to lose should any crisis arise in South East if anything negative should happen to Kanu are simply not doing anything to put pressures on President Buhari to the IPOB leader, at least, based on health grounds. These elite will invariably lose out of political power because if the South East becomes ungovernable, where else will they exercise authority as political leaders of South East,?" HURIWA queried.

HURIWA recalled that Chief Mike Ozekhome, Counsel to Kanu, on Monday, asked President Buhari to order the release of his client.

Kanu has been in DSS custody for over 14 months since his arrest and extradition from Kenya to Nigeria.

He is on trial for treasonable felony.

In July, the United Nations Human Rights Council Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, in a 16-page report, had indicted both Nigeria and Kenya governments for the arrest, torture and continued detention of the IPOB leader.

In a letter on Monday, Ozekhome called on Buhari to order Kanu’s immediate release through a more productive “political solution.”

Ozekhome said Buhari can order Kanu’s release in line with section 174, which gives the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) powers to “discontinue at any stage before judgment is delivered any such criminal proceedings instituted or undertaken by him or any other authority or person.”

“You can do this by instructing the Honourable Attorney-General of the Federation to wield his powers under section 174 of the 1999 Constitution to enter a “nolle prosequi. This will immediately halt the present restlessness and sits-at-home mantra currently ravaging the South East and paralysing business and normal life,” Ozekhome said.

HURIWA applauded Chief Ozekhome and called for the immediate freedom of Kanu and his followers jailed since the last 7 years only for publicly canvassing self-determination which is backed by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.