The Indigenous People of Biafra has accused the Federal Government of deliberate attempts to introduce empty charges in order to continuously keep Nnamdi Kanu in detention.
The group also said the Federal Government had constantly been amending its charges so as to prolong the issue of Kanu’s unconditional release from the Department of State Services’ custody.
In a statement by its Media and Publicity Secretary, Emma Powerful, on Wednesday, IPOB said the Federal Government had carried out six successive amendments to the charges filed against Kanu in its desperation to manufacture offences that might provide suitable grounds to proffer charges where no offence known to the law existed.
It pointed out that the manner in which Kanu was brought into the country was a grievous infraction on international conventions, treaties, and protocol to which Nigeria is a signatory.
The statement read in part, “As such, there is no court in Nigeria that has the competence to ever conduct hearing on any of the frivolous charges filed against Kanu without first undoing the illegality that brought him to Nigeria in the first place by taking him back to the country where he was brought from.
“Even the Attorney-General of the Federation, in an erudite extract he endorsed in his foreword on a United Nations Study on Extradition concerning Nigeria, totally agreed that extraordinary rendition is in itself a crime against humanity.”
IPOB said that if the Federal Government and the AGF knew what they were doing, they would save themselves from the disgrace that was about to befall them, because Kanu committed no offence known to the laws of Nigeria and the world for that matter.
The statement added, “If we may ask, what happened to the charge of treasonable felony earlier preferred against Kanu? It has now been amended to the present new 15 counts, which still do not hold water.
“Rendition, according to the information approved by the AGF, is a general term for all procedures including extradition, for returning wanted persons or aliens generally from one jurisdiction to another. Unlawful or irregular forms of returning persons wanted for trials or punishment include abduction, kidnapping, and the notorious extraordinary rendition.
“Extraordinary rendition is a government-sponsored arrest, kidnap, and abduction of persons wanted, accused or convicted of a criminal offence, either against the state, which sponsored the arrest, kidnap or abduction, or to a willing third party.
“The Umaru Dikko affair of 1984 is an example of an attempt at unlawful rendition. After a coup d’état in 1983, the Federal Military Government of Nigeria requested the British Government to surrender Umaru Diko, a former minister alleged to have been involved in corrupt practices.
“Before the British government responded to the request, an intelligence officer from the Nigerian security forces with three Israeli nationals abducted Dikko and attempted to cargo him to Nigeria in a crate.
“This attempt was foiled by the British security apparatus; the abductors were jailed and the relationship between Nigeria and Britain became strained. Although not successful, it was an attempt by Nigeria to go against the international norms in expressing its political will.”
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