Disregard calls for Kanu’s release, CNG tells FG

The Coalition of Northern Groups has again asked the Federal Government to disregard any call from Igbo elite to release the embattled leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.

This was at it noted that IPOB had the support of many Igbo leaders whose actions, according to the group, were “diabolical” and had pushed “Nigeria to the precipice”.

The leadership of the CNG led by its spokesperson, Mr Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, said the renewed pressure by Igbo leaders for the unconditional release of Kanu was unreasonable and a recipe for greater conflict.

Suleiman spoke in reaction to the call by Anambra State Governor, Charles Soludo, who asked the FG to release Kanu unconditionally, noting that he would stand as surety to facilitate the IPOB leader’s release.

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Also, the counsel for IPOB, Mr Ifeanyi Ejiofor, also told our correspondent in an interview that Kanu ought to have been released on October 13, 2022, following the order of the Appeal Court which struck out the charges against him.

Recently, the Council of Elders of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide held a peace summit to discuss ways of addressing insecurity in the country and the South-East.

They also expressed the desire that Kanu should be released unconditionally, a call which Suleiman asked the FG to discountenance.

In the communiqué signed by its Chairman, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, the council took the decision on the need to have a peace summit.

“We want to dialogue with his (Kanu’s) participation in order to have an enduring peace in Nigeria, particularly in the South-East.

“The council, therefore, calls on the Federal Government and all persons concerned to release Nnamdi Kanu unconditionally. He cannot be in prison while such a crucial summit is being held,” part of the communiqué read.

Reacting, Suleiman, who spoke in a telephone interview with Saturday PUNCH on Thursday, said such calls would “set a dangerous precedence in the country”.

He noted that it was “unpatriotic and unreasonable for leaders to openly shield IPOB and other authors of mindless violence and separatism who see it as their duty to actualise what their fathers started in 1966 which is to bring about the realisation of a separate State of Biafra through the force of arms and terrorist tactics.

“Today, everyone can see that the diabolical scheme planned and exhibited in the actions and clamours of IPOB supported morally and politically by the vast majority of the affrighted Igbo elite, politicians, traditional rulers, business persons, and the larger population of this ethnic group that has pushed Nigeria to the precipice.

“As the representatives of various interest groups from Northern Nigeria, the CNG has watched and studied these events carefully and with considerable restraint and maturity, to the point of condoning and accommodating several unreasonable and unacceptable actions that have been perpetrated against Nigerians collectively, and northerners in particular,” Suleiman added.