HURIWA calls for ‘widespread’ protests if Nigerian govt fails to release IPOB leader, Kanu, within seven days

Civil rights advocacy group Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has warned that a demonstration has been planned in the eventuality that Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, is not freed within the next seven days.

HURIWA claimed in a statement released by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, on Wednesday, that the Federal Government’s continued detention of Kanu in spite of the Appeal Court’s decision to release the IPOB leader unconditionally was undemocratic and contrary to the rule of law.

The group lamented that though President Muhammadu Buhari has been in many international and United Nations conventions and summits where he pledged to oversee a peaceful, transparent, free and fair election in February, the President has frustrated the release of Kanu and this has stoked the embers of warfare in the South-East.

HURIWA’s Onwubiko said, “It is painful that a once peaceful land has turn bloody and militarised because of the misadministration and the mismanagement of the Federal Government and President Muhammadu Buhari.

READ ALSO:IPOB warns of ‘tit for tat’ treatment if anything happens to Kanu

“President Muhammadu Buhari was in USA for the USA/African economic summit and he met President Joe Biden and pledged to oversee a peaceful, transparent, free and fair election in February so a new President and new set of legislators to be elected by Nigerians.

“The President has also attended dozens of AU conferences and ECOWAS summits and made same promise to conduct free and fair poll. But he has stoked the embers of warfare in the South East with the incarceration of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu of the Indigenous People of Biafra.

“President Muhammadu Buhari has disobeyed Court of Appeal judgment freeing Nnamdi Kanu and Nnamdi Kanu is seriously sick as revealed by his legal team amongst whom is a winner of one of the highest Nigeria’s national Award Chief Ozekhome SAN. The failure of the President to release Nnamdi Kanu has caused untold hardships in the South East even as many fringe groups have embarked on widespread attacks of police assets in the South East yet President Muhammadu Buhari has continued to detain Nnamdi Kanu.

“We demand for Nnamdi Kanu’s release to ease tensions in Igboland. We also call for widespread protests in Nigeria if after 7 working days Nnamdi Kanu is not freed.”

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