State sponsored tactics delaying Kanu’s release – Legal team

The legal team of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, on Friday raised an alarm that state-sponsored tactics were used to frustrate the move to release IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, from the detention facility of the Department of State Services, DSS.

The lead counsel to IPOB, Ifeanyi Ejiofor, disclosed this to newsmen in Owerri, after they had met with Kanu at the DSS detention facility in Abuja, last Thursday.

According to IPOB’s legal team, “It was an auspicious visit to brief Onyendu Mazi Nnamdi Kanu on the renewed tactical approach being adopted in the prevailing circumstances by the erudite Lead Counsel. Onyewu was delighted with the speed of positivism of the advanced legal approach. Details remain private and confidential as instructed by the learned Lead Counsel.

“It is to be noted that the defence team, ably led by Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN, was not taken aback by the development in Court on 28th June 2022, and neither was Onyendu himself taken by surprise.

“We are not unaware of the fact that the Executive is desperately frustrating every positive effort being made in Court to bring innocent Nnamdi Kanu out. However, we are not in any way deterred by these state-sponsored tactics from firing on all cylinders, to ensure the unconditional release of Onyendu Mazi Nnamdi Kanu in the shortest possible time.

“We had good quality time with Onyendu, who is unshaken and unfazed by the antics of those determined to dampen his spirit. Rather, he maintains that his primary focus now is to ensure total peace in the entire South-East, while appealing to UmuChineke to be more focused now, more than ever.”

On the issue that Kanu’s bail condition was rejected by the court, the legal team said: “The Ruling delivered on the 28th day of June 2022, by the Honourable Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court, Abuja, was never based on any second Bail Application by our team of Lawyers. Rather, it was a ruling predicated on an Application to vacate an earlier 2019 Order made by the same court which had revoked Onyendu’s bail, leading to the court issuing a bench warrant for his arrest.

“The said Application, which the court ruled upon, was filed as far back as 1st of April,2019, and not four years after the incident, as the court erroneously held.”

”These clarifications are compelling because almost all the Social Media platforms and leading television stations acted on the wrong information mischievously dished out by persons who ought to know better and who are supposed to be concerned about Onyendu’s immediate release from DSS’s gulag.

“We therefore hereby encourage UmuChineke never to despair about such false reports. Your kind understanding, full cooperation and constant prayers are needed at this critical Time more than ever before.”