“He’s gravely ill” — Kanu’s Lawyer writes EU over his continued detention despite court judgement

By Izunna Okafor

The Special Counsel to the Leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, Aloy Ejimakor has called for urgent intervention of the European Union over the continued detention of the IPOB Leader despite an Appeal Court judgement that recently acquitted him.

Ejimakor made the call in a letter addressed to the Head of the European Union Delegation to Nigeria and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Ambassador Samuela Isopi over the issues surrounding the arrest and detention of the Mazi Kanu by the Government of Nigeria which also refused to release him after an Appeal Court judgment discharged him on October 13.

Recall that Kanu, who has been in custody of the Department of State Services (DSS) since June 2021, is being prosecuted on 15-count charges bordering on treasonable felony and terrorism. Eight of the 15-count charges were stuck out on April 8, 2022; while Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court in Abuja quashed the remaining seven counts last month, and discharged Kanu. The Nigerian government has, however, refused to obey the court judgement that acquitted Kanu.

According to Ejimakor, the Nigerian government did not only refuse to release Kanu, but also denies him independent medical attention in the custody since June 2021 he was arrested and returned to Nigeria from Kenya.

He explained that Kanu a medical evaluation done in March shows that Kanu has Hypokalemia (low serum potassium) and is also suffering from concentric left ventricular hypertrophy with tricuspid valve regurgitation (Heart valve).

He added that “Potassium is critical to the proper functioning of nerve and muscle cells, particularly heart muscle cells. A very low potassium level (less than 2.5 mmol L) can be life-threatening and requires urgent medical attention.”

While stressing the need for urgent medical attention for Mazi Kanu, Ejimakor, in the letter, also called on the European Union Delegation to ensure that the Nigerian government promptly implements the Opinion of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the pertinent judgment of the Federal High Court of Nigeria (Umuahia) regarding the matter of the detained IPOB leader.

The letter reads in parts: “We are Solicitors to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu (hereafter Mr. Kanu), on whose behalf and instruction we hereby most respectfully request for the urgent intervention of European Union Delegation in urging the Government of Nigeria (hereafter: GON) to promptly implement the Opinion of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the pertinent judgment of the Federal High Court of Nigeria (Umuahia) regarding the matter of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, who is currently being detained by the GON in solitary confinement.

“An Advance Copy of the Opinion was issued on 20th July, 2022 and released to us on 23rd July, 2022. The cover letter bearing the Opinion indicated that the Working Group forwarded the Opinion to GON on 22nd July, 2022. The pertinent judgment of the Federal High Court of Nigeria was delivered on 2oth October, 2022 by the Umuahia (Abia State) Division of the court.

“For your ease of reference, the following is a summary of the background information on this matter: Mr. Kanu is a Nigerian-British political activist who advocates self-determination for the people of Biafra (Eastern Nigeria), with the singular aim of creation of a sovereign State of Biafra from Nigeria through referendum.

“Intervene with GON, urging it to promptly comply with the ratio of the said judgment of the Federal High Court of Nigeria (Umuahia) by restoring Mr. Kanu to his status quo before 19th June, 2021 and otherwise making him whole as was ordered by the court.

“Intervene with GON, urging it to be guided – in all matters relating to Mr. Kanu by the letters and spirit of the United Nations Working Group Opinion, the judgment of the Federal High Court of Nigeria (Umuahia), the judgment of the High Court of Abia State and the judgment of the Court of Appeal of Nigeria.

“Intervene with GON, urging it to cease and desist from further criminal prosecution of Mr. Kanu and to instead constructively engage Mr. Kanu in seeking a political solution to the Biafran question.

“Your Excellency, our decision to lay this matter before the EU Mission in Nigeria (and by extension, to your home governments) was propelled by the stellar human rights record of the European Union and the supranational diplomatic influence the EU or the Mission can bring to bear on the Government of Nigeria and persuade it to do the right thing. We are also very alarmed at the worsening health conditions of Mr. Kanu, exacerbated by the inhumane detention conditions to which he is being subjected, including his solitary confinement since 27th June, 2021.

“We trust therefore that your Mission and home governments will give the most urgent and expeditious attention and consideration to our humble Prayers.

“Undersigned Counsel is available for a meeting with Your Excellency should it be deemed necessary by your good offices. In the interim, we most sincerely thank Your Excellency for the opportunity of submitting this Urgent Appeal and while we look forward to hearing from you soonest, please be assured of our highest regards for your person, your Mission and your home governments.”

“A medical opinion on Kanu’s health by Pink Rose Hospital Limited dated August 23, 2022 read, “This medical opinion concerning Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is based on my review of two medical documents which were given to me by Barrister Aloy Ejimakor for the purpose of my rendering my Medical Opinion on the documents. The documents are:

“A Medical Report dated 15th March 2022 signed by Dr. Adebimpe, M.O of Department of State Medical Centre.

“Laboratory Reports spanning several tests, attached to the above Medical Report.

“Having considered the above, I came to the following conclusions: The patient has concentric left ventricular hypertrophy with tricuspid valve regurgitation (Heart valve) see paragraph 5 (n) of the medical report dated 15 March 2022, Ref No C./614/T/1/70 of the Department of State Medical Centre as held.

“The patient is suffering from Hypokalemia (low serum potassium) 3.0mmol/(normal is 3.5-5.0 mmol) as revealed in paragraph 5 (of the mmol 15th March 2022, Ref No C/614/T/1/70 of Department of State Medical Centre as attached.

“Tricuspid valve regurgitation (which is a defect of the heart valve) with ventricular hypertrophy is a life-threatening condition with the following complications Sudden death from a Heart attack, Pulmonary hypertension, Heart failure, atrial fibrillation, cardiac cithosis, ascites, thrombus formation, and embolization. The only treatment for tricuspid valve regurgitation is internal heart surgery for tricuspid valve replacement.

“Hypokalemia (low serum potassium) Potassium is critical to the proper functioning of nerve and muscle cells, particularly heart muscle cells. A very low potassium level (less than 2.5 mmol L) can be life-threatening and requires urgent medical attention.

“However, the combination of tricuspid valve regurgitation, left ventricular hypertrophy and hypokalemia makes the prognosis or the outcome to be poor if there is no urgent surgical intervention in a specialist center with excellent capacity.”

–

See letter below…

November 15, 2022

Ambassador Samuela Isopi

Head of the European Union Delegation to Nigeria and to the Economic

Community of West African States

21 Crescent Constitution Avenue

Central Business District

Abuja 900103

Urgent Appeal for the diplomatic and humanitarian intervention of your Mission in urging the Government of Nigeria to implement the Opinion of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Judgment of the Federal High Court of Nigeria regarding Mazi Nnamdi Kanu; and in the interim, to accord Mr. Kanu his human right to seek independent medical care for his ailments

Your Excellency:

We are Solicitors to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu (hereafter: Mr. Kanu), on whose behalf and Instruction we hereby most respectfully request for the urgent intervention of

European Union Delegation in                       urging the Government of Nigeria

(hereafter: GON) to promptly implement the Opinion of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the pertinent judgment of the Federal High Court of Nigeria (Umuahia) regarding the matter of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, who is currently being detained by the GON in solitary confinement.

An Advance Copy of the Opinion was issued on 20th July, 2022 and released to us on 23rd July, 2022. The cover letter bearing the Opinion indicated that the Working Group forwarded the Opinion to GON on 22nd July, 2022. The pertinent judgment of the Federal High Court of Nigeria was delivered on 26th October, 2022 by the Umuahia (Abia State) Division of the court. The said Opinion and Judgment are hereby attached for your perusal and respectively marked as Annexure 1 and Annexure 2.

For your ease of reference, the following is a summary of the background information on this matter.

1. Kanu is a Nigerian-British political activist who advocates selfdetermination for the people of Biafra (Eastern Nigeria), with the singular aim of creation of a sovereign State of Biafra from Nigeria through referendum.

He is the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) which he founded in 2012 for the purpose of actualization of the creation of the State of Biafra.

2. The IPOB is registered as a legal entity in the United Kingdom, it maintains its headquarters in Germany, and it has numerous offices and chapters around the world. It operates in the open as a nonviolent group, including in Nigeria before the GON unfairly proscribed it in 2017. IPOB maintains a strong civic presence in all European Union nations, where it has never been indicted for any infraction since it came into being in 2012. In the United Kingdom, it owns and maintains an internet radio known as Radio Biafra, under the directorship of Mr. Kanu.

3. On October 14, 2015, Mr. Kanu was arrested in Lagos, Nigeria, few days after his arrival from his base in London, United Kingdom. He was subsequently charged with treasonable offenses relating to his broadcasts on Radio Biafra from its location in London; and his demand for a referendum on the creation of sovereign State of Biafra from Nigeria.

4. During the course of his detention, Mr. Kanu was granted bail several times by a High Court of the Federal Republic of Nigeria but the GON disobeyed the court orders and continued to detain Mr. Kanu without trial.

5. In the course of time and after 18 months in detention without trial, Mr. Kanu was released on bail, due mainly to domestic and international pressure. Following this, Mr. Kanu returned to his ancestral home in Umuahia, Abia State, Southeast Nigeria, where he stayed and awaited his next court date scheduled for October 20, 2017.

6. From September 10 to 14, 2017, Nigerian security forces led by the Army levied lethal attacks at Mr. Kanu’s home. The security forces used live bullets and other lethal munitions and several people including Mr. Kanu, his parents (now late), his siblings, children, women, the elderly, and numerous visitors were at the said home during the attacks.

7. At the end of the attacks, Mr. Kanu’s home was badly damaged, dozens of people were killed, many were wounded and maimed; and the security forces captured several people alive and disappeared them to unknown locations to this day.

8. During the course of the military operation, the Nigerian Army, in a published statement, declared IPOB a terrorist organization, apparently to justify its indiscriminate and unlawful use of lethal force against Mr. Kanu and the innocent people at his premises. These military attacks were also simultaneously extended to many other locations in Southeast Nigeria, and casualties were staggering.

9. On September 21, 2017, and quickly following on the heels of the Army, a

Nigerian Federal High Court made an ex parte Order (without prior notice to IPOB) declaring IPOB a terrorist organization and further ordering its proscription pursuant to an ex parte Application brought before the court the day before (on September 20, 2017) by the current Attorney-General of Nigeria.

• This ex parte Order led to a nationwide manhunt of persons of Biafran descent, suspected to be members of IPOB, which culminated in the extrajudicial deaths of thousands and arrest and torture of many. This ex parte Order was promptly appealed to the Nigerian Court of Appeal in March 2018 but till date, the appeal is still pending hearing, thus allowing the GON to latch on the extant order as a basis for excessive militarist operations that have led to the extrajudicial killings of thousands of IPOB members across Southeastern Nigeria. More thousands are in detention under inhumane conditions that include solitary confinement and grievous physical torture.

• In the interim, the lethal military invasion of Mr. Kanu’s home, the crushing militarization of the entire Eastern part of Nigeria, the nationwide manhunt for Mr. Kanu by security forces and the spate of extrajudicial killings of IPOB members, compelled Mr. Kanu to flee Nigeria in search of refuge and to save his life.

• In the course of his involuntary exile and sojourns abroad, Mr. Kanu, on 12th May 2021, entered the Republic Kenya as a British subject and was legally admitted on his British passport. After his admission, he settled-in at a temporary location in Nairobi, Kenya.

• After failing in the objective of killing Mr. Kanu during the September 2017 military operation against him, and being aware that he had taken refuge in Kenya, security forces of the GON hotly pursued Mr. Kanu to Kenya and laid in wait and ambush for him.

• On June 19, 2021, Kanu drove himself to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Nairobi, Kenya on a personal errand. As soon as he pulled to a stop at the parking lot and alighted from his vehicle, about twenty Nigerian/Kenyan security personnel violently accosted and abducted him, handcuffed him, blindfolded him, bundled him in a vehicle and sped away.

• The abductors took him to a nondescript private house (not a police station or other official location) somewhere in Nairobi, Kenya and chained him to the floor. Mr. Kanu was not shown any Kenyan arrest warrant or extradition warrant, nor was he informed of the existence of any such warrant. His abductors took turns beating him and torturing him and taunted him and verbally degraded him.

• He remained chained to the floor for eight days, was not allowed to bathe, was fed bland bread once a day and given non-sanitary water to drink. He was not taken before a Kenyan Court or even a Kenyan police station or other official law enforcement facility or allowed a phone call.

• On the eight day (27th June, 2021), his abductors brought him out of the house, put him in a vehicle, drove him straight to the tarmac of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, where they evaded Kenyan immigration and forcibly bundled him into a private jet that departed the airport at about 12 noon on June 27, 2021 and arrived Abuja, Nigeria in the evening of same day.

• On arrival in Nigeria, Mr. Kanu was taken to and detained at the facility of the State Security Services (SSS)/Nigerian Intelligence Agency (NIS) in Abuja, where he spent the first night, sleeping on the floor with very bright electric bulbs deliberately left on throughout the night.

• On 29th June, 2021, the Attorney General of Nigeria addressed a press conference, whereupon he stated the following: “Self-aclaimed leader of the proscribed secessionist Indegenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, has been (rearrested) through the collaborative efforts of Nigerian intelligence and security services. He has been brought back to Nigeria in order to continue facing trial after disappearing while on bail regarding 11 count charge against him”.

• Till date, and despite judicial interrogatories, GON has not produced any Kenyan arrest or extradition warrant upon which the so-called arrest and extradition were made. In the interim, the Kenyan government has publicly (and in judicial proceedings) denied any involvement in the abduction, unlawful detention, enforced disappearance, torture and unlawful expulsion of Kanu from Kenya to Nigeria.

• In September 2021, Mr. Kanu (through undersigned Counsel) brought a constitutional lawsuit seeking the enforcement of Mr. Kanu’s fundamental rights, stemming from the military invasion of his home as earlier stated. In January 2022, the Court rendered a judgment in favor of Mr. Kanu, condemning the military invasion and awarding him damages against the GON in the amount of One Billion Nigerian Naira. The judgment also ordered the GON to apologize to Mr. Kanu for the military invasion. See Annexure 3. Till date, GON has neither paid the compensation, nor rendered any apology. Instead, it continues to detain Mr. Kanu in solitary confinement while his trial lingers in delays, adjournments, continuances and appeals that have become the norm from when he was first arrested and incarcerated in 2015.

• In October 2021, Mr. Kanu (through his international Counsel) filed a Complaint with the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.

On 20th July, 2022, the Working Group rendered an Opinion, stating that Kanu was arbitrarily arrested, tortured and extraordinarily renditioned to Nigeria in violation of international laws and norms. Accordingly, the Working Group directed the GON to unconditionally and immediately release Mr. Kanu and accord him the opportunity of seeking reparations.

• On 13th October, 2022, the Court of Appeal of Nigeria delivered a judgment, ruling in the main that Mr. Kanu’s presence in Nigeria is as a result of an impermissible extraordinary rendition. The court accordingly discharged Mr. Kanu from all criminal charges pending against him. The GON has obtained an order staying this judgment while it has also appealed it to the Supreme Court of Nigeria. The appeal is pending.

• In March 2022, Mr. Kanu (through undersigned Counsel) brought a constitutional lawsuit before the Federal High Court of Nigeria seeking the enforcement of Mr. Kanu’s fundamental rights, stemming from his unlawful expulsion/extraordinary rendition from Kenya. On 26th October, 2022, the Court rendered a judgment in favor of Mr. Kanu, condemning the extraordinary rendition and the consequent torture and unlawful detention and awarded damages against the GON (and in favor of Mr. Kanu) in the amount of Five Hundred Million Naira.

Your Excellency, in the midst of the forgoing, Mr. Kanu is gravely ill with three life-threatening conditions, namely a serious heart condition, hypertension and low potassium levels. All of these conditions demand specialist medical care and interventions that are not available at the facility where Mr. Kanu is being detained. To date, the GON has refused every request for an independent/specialist medical intervention for Mr. Kanu. Attached and marked as Annexure 4 is a Medical Opinion by a specialist who examined Mr. Kanu’s medical records. The opinion speaks for itself.

In view of the foregoing and particularly within the reality of Mr. Kanu’s deteriorating health, we hereby most respectfully present the following Prayers to your Mission and to the European Union governments represented by your Mission.

1. Urgently intervene with the Government of Nigeria (GON), urging it to, in the interim, permit Mr. Kanu his human right to seek independent medical care for his grave health conditions.

1. Intervene with GON, urging it to promptly comply with the said Opinion of the United Nations Working Group, particularly as it pertains to the unconditional release of Mr. Kanu from detention.

• Intervene with GON, urging it to promptly comply with the ratio of the said judgment of the Federal High Court of Nigeria (Umuahia) by restoring Mr. Kanu to his status quo before 19th June, 2021 and otherwise making him whole as was ordered by the court.

1. Intervene with GON, urging it to be guided – in all matters relating to Mr. Kanu – by the letters and spirit of the United Nations Working Group Opinion, the judgment of the Federal High Court of Nigeria (Umuahia), the judgment of the High Court of Abia State and the judgement of the Court of Appeal of Nigeria.

1. Intervene with GON, urging it to cease and desist from further criminal prosecution of Mr. Kanu and to instead constructively engage Mr. Kanu in seeking a political solution to the Biafran question.

Your Excellency, our decision to lay this matter before the EU Mission in Nigeria (and by extension, to your home governments) was propelled by the stellar human rights record of the European Union and the supranational diplomatic influence the EU or the Mission can bring to bear on the Government of Nigeria and persuade it to do the right thing. We are also very alarmed at the worsening health conditions of Mr. Kanu, exacerbated by the inhumane detention conditions to which he is being subjected, including his solitary confinement since 27th June, 2021.

We trust therefore that your Mission and home governments will give the most urgent and expeditious attention and consideration to our humble Prayers.

Undersigned Counsel is available for a meeting with Your Excellency should it be deemed necessary by your good offices.

In the interim, we most sincerely thank Your Excellency for the opportunity of submitting this Urgent Appeal and while we look forward to hearing from you soonest, please be assured of our highest regards for your person, your Mission and your home governments.

Sincerely:

ADULBERT LEGAL SERVICES

_________________________

Aloy Ejimakor, Esquire

Special Counsel to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu