ARREST OF SENATOR ABARIBE: Ohanaeze wants DSS to look in another direction

The Ohanaeze Ndigbo has frowned at the arrest of Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe by the Department of State Services (DSS).

The Igbo apex socio-political organisation president general, John Nnia Nwodo, in a statement on Friday called for the immediate release of the senator from Abia State and a notable critic of President Muhammadu Buhari’s government.

DSS had earlier on Friday arrested Abaribe in Abuja supposedly for being one of the sureties of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader, Nnamdi Kanu, whose whereabouts have remained unknown since the Nigerian Army invaded his home in Umuahia in September 2017.

Kanu is being prosecuted over alleged treasonable felony but was in April 2017, granted bail by an Abuja Federal High Court after 18 months in detention. The senator and two other persons, Tochukwu Uchendu, and Emmanuel Shallom Ben, had stood as sureties for Kanu and signed a bond of N100 million each.

Following Kanu’s disappearance, Senator Abaribe has been under pressure to produce Kanu.

But responding to the eventual arrest of Abaribe by the DSS, Nwodo contended that it was only the Nigerian Army that can disclose Nnamdi’s whereabouts, adding that neither Abaribe nor any surety has the capacity to produce him.

He said, “The army in the name of ‘Operation Python Dance’ invaded Nnamdi’s home and destabilised normalcy there.

“It is only the security agency that can disclose Nnamdi’s whereabouts. Senator Abaribe has no capacity, nor has any surety in the circumstances to know the whereabouts of Nnamdi Kanu. What happened in Umahia was an invasion, a war of a kind.

READ ALSO: DSS arrests PDP’s Sen Abaribe

“Nnamdi may have been killed or captured in the imbroglio or even escaped into hiding.

“The onus lies on the security forces to disclose his whereabouts. The judiciary is beginning to tow the line of the executive by throwing the law overboard in matters that affect the south-east.

“We are all equal before the law. Senator Abaribe must be released forthwith.”

 

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