Chieftain of the Labour Party (LP) Kenneth Okonkwo claims that racial prejudice is the reason for Nnamdi Kanu’s prolonged detention as the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
Speaking on Wednesday during an appearance on Arise TV’s NewsDay show, Okonkwo asserted that Kanu’s prolonged detention is the result of “ethnic bias,” noting that he hasn’t committed more serious offences than other separatists whose court cases have been dismissed.
As it did with previous separatists, Okonkwo urged the federal government to “take the intelligent way out” by freeing Kanu.
Okonkwo declared: “Nnamdi Kanu has not done anything that other people from other zones have done,” he said.
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“We know about Sunday Igboho of the Yoruba nation agitator. We know of the Boko Haram people who say that they want a different country where Western education is an abomination.
“These people have been released, not just that they have been released; in the case of Boko Haram, they have been reassimilated into society and given plum jobs.
“Why is Nnamdi Kanu’s case different? There is an ethnic and some unnecessary bias that is keeping that man in jail.
“The government should be wise enough to release this man. You can release him conditionally or unconditionally.
“As a lawyer, I have watched the legal issues very clearly, and I saw that even in the courts, from the high court to the supreme court, there are discordant tunes amongst them.
“Even in the issue of bail, some of the tiers of the court have granted him bail. Even in the issue of the charges, some tiers of the court have quashed all the charges.
“So, you can see that the government has a lot of places it can stand to release the young man and bring peace to the south-east.
“He is now more like a political prisoner. The longer Nnamdi Kanu is in prison, the taller he becomes and the shorter the government becomes.”
