SAN FRANCISCO October 05, (THEWILL) – Barely a day after the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, court dispensed with a related suit brought before it by Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd), detained leader of Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu, has dragged the Federal Government and Department of State Services, DSS, to the regional court seeking justice over illegal detention.
The ECOWAS Community Court of Justice had on Tuesday ruled that the arrest and detention of Dasuki, who is Nigeria’s immediate past National Security Adviser, NSA, is unlawful and arbitrary, adding that the federal government’s re-arrest of Dasuki on November 4, after he was granted bail by a court of law amounts to a mockery of democracy and the rule of law.
But in a statement by its Media and Publicity Secretary of IPOB, Mr. Emma Powerful, IPOB alleged that the Federal Government had also started making moves to rubbish the courts managed by ECOWAS, thinking that it was a Nigeria court it could manipulate.
The separatist group said they went to ECOWAS court because of the illegal detention of Kanu which, he said, has sparked condemnation from notable people across the world.
It also called for the release of its leader, Kanu, who has been detained illegally by the DSS and the Nigeria government in Kuje prison, Abuja even after two courts had granted him bail.
“We are also worried why the democratically elected government of President Buhari cannot obey court order in Nigeria and why his advisers cannot afford to let him know that the continued detention of Kanu and other IPOB members, without trial, will bring down the image of his government,” Powerful said.
IPOB explained that it instituted the case which would come up on Wednesday because the Nigeria judiciary could not deliver judgment in the matter concerning illegal detention of its leader, Kanu.
The 46-year-old Kanu was arrested by the DSS at Murtala Muhammed International Airport Lagos in October, 2015, on his way back from the United kingdom (UK) and since then, has been in detention and trial over alleged treasonable felony.
