Charges against a Nigerian separatist leader accused of terrorism and incitement to violence in the country’s southeast have been dismissed by a court, his lawyer told The Associated Press.
Nigeria’s Court of Appeal on Thursday dismissed government fees opposing Nnamdi Kanu in Abuja, the national capital, after a jury questioned the legality of the case opposing him, according to Ifeanyi Ejiofor, his lawyer. Kanu has still been released.
The government says Kanu “was only released and not acquitted. “Umar Jibrilu Gwandu, spokesman for Nigeria’s justice minister, said in a statement that the government would go ahead with Kanu’s trial. “The appropriate legal characteristics will be exploited before the government,” he said. .
The Kanu-led Biafra indigenous separatist organization has pushed for Nigeria’s southeastern region to secede from the West African country and become independent. But the Nigerian government said it was employing the organization known as IPOB to incite violence, resulting in deaths. of many other people in the southeast of the country.
Kanu had been tried for alleged treason and terrorism, but escaped Nigeria in 2017 while on bail. He was arrested in June last year and brought back to Nigeria from an undisclosed country.
The separatist leader, who also has British citizenship, has pleaded not guilty to the resumption of his trial, which his organization says is being used to quell his secessionist crusade. The crusade reminds many of the short-lived Republic of Biafra that fought and lost a civil war from 1967 to 1970 to gain independence from Nigeria. An estimated one million people died in the war, many of them from starvation.
Following his acquittal, Emma Powerful, a spokeswoman for the Biafra group, told the AP: “Our next purpose is to make the release of Biafra happen and that no human being can prevent it. “
Kanu’s trial echoed accusations of marginalization in Nigeria’s southeastern region, made up of the Igbos, Nigeria’s third-largest ethnic organization that is predominantly Christian. Nigeria’s more than two hundred million other people are almost similarly divided between Christians and Muslims.
Amid calls for a referendum, the secessionist organization IPOB has more violence, the government and experts said. The formation of the Eastern Security Network, its paramilitary wing, in December 2020 coincided with a surge in attacks by thieves in the region.
IPOB has also been banned as a terrorist organization by the Nigerian authorities. Many members of the organization were arrested. An escape in Imo state led to the escape of nearly 2,000 inmates earlier this year.
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