By Joseph Jibueze, Deputy News Editor and Nwanosike Onu, Awka

Kingsley, the brother of Nnamdi Kanu, has urged a United Kingdom high court to direct the British government to intervene in securing the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader’s release.

Kingsley told the court that his brother, who has been in the custody of the Department of State Services (DSS), was a victim of “brazen and violent” act of extraordinary rendition.

The court heard that three British foreign secretaries have failed to call for the release of Kanu, a British national, according to The Guardian.

The court was also told that Kanu was abducted, unlawfully detained and tortured in Kenya in June last year before being flown blindfolded on a private plane to Nigeria.

Kanu was re-arraigned on January 19 before Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court in Abuja for alleged offences under the Terrorism Prevention Amendment Act.

Kingsley’s lawyer, Charlotte Kilroy KC, told the UK court that the secessionist agitator had been held in Nigeria ever since largely in solitary confinement, in poor conditions and without access to medical treatment for a heart condition, which had put his life at risk.

She said successive foreign secretaries – first Liz Truss, then Dominic Raab and now James Cleverly – had unlawfully failed to act.

The lawyer said this was despite “clear and overwhelming” evidence of extraordinary rendition, including a determination to that effect from the UN working group on arbitrary detention, and an admission by the Nigerian government that Kanu was transferred by its security services without any warrant of arrest or extradition.

In written submissions, Kilroy said: “D (the defendant) has not taken steps to impose sanctions on those involved in (Kanu’s) rendition, torture and ill-treatment, has not raised his case with the UN committee against torture … and has not acknowledged that he is the victim of extraordinary rendition and put this to the Nigerian government privately or publicly.”

Kilroy said while on bail in 2017, there was an attack on Kanu’s home in Nigeria in which at least 28 IPOB members were killed.

Read Also: IPOB: Court suspends Kanu’s trial indefinitely

She said that when Kanu left the country, “he was of course fleeing for his life”.

Kilroy noted that the Court of Appeal in Nigeria dismissed the criminal proceedings because Kanu’s transfer from Kenya constituted “a clear and egregious violation” of applicable international and domestic law.

But, counsel for the UK foreign secretary, James Eadie KC, said in written submissions that there had been “and continues to be both considerable diplomatic engagement and consular assistance in (Kanu’s) case”.

However, he said the UK government had no duty, as the claimant had argued, to form a “firm, concluded view” on whether Kanu had been subject to extraordinary rendition or to communicate any view on that subject and that could actually be counterproductive.

Ozekhome: self-determination no crime

Also yesterday, Kanu’s lead counsel in Nigeria, Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN), urged President Muhammadu Buhari to release his client.

He believes Kanu’s continued detention would further aggravate the insecurity in the Southeast.

Besides, he said the agitation for self-determination was not a crime.

The Senior Advocate spoke while delivering the 11th Zik’s lecture series organised by the Faculty of Social Sciences, Nnamdi Azikwe University in Awka, the Anambra State capital.

Ozekhome said: “Nnamdi Kanu is not a separatist. He is fighting a self-determination course which is globally recognised.

“IPOB didn’t start violently; it was peaceful until September 14 when the army invaded Kanu’s home.

“Let me seize this opportunity to beg Mr. President, on bended knees, without prejudice, to release Nnamdi Kanu.

“We’re not saying he should subvert justice. What will bring peace to the region is not his continued detention.”

Ozekhome disagreed with claims that Nigeria was indivisible.

He regretted that successive leaderships had taken the nation’s unity, indivisibility and indissolubility for granted, stressing the factors that guarantee unity must be nurtured.

He said: “I heartily guffaw at times when I hear Nigerian leaders mouth moral platitudes and ineffective liberal disquisitions about the indivisibility and indissolubility of Nigeria.

“I roar with laughter because old Russia made the same historical mistake.

“It was forced to dissolve on December 26, 1991, by declaration No. 142 – H of the Soviet of the Republic of the Supreme Soviet.”

Citing the late Prof. Chinua Achebe that Nigeria’s trouble is squarely leadership failure, the guest lecturer added that followership constituted another major outstanding challenge confronting the nation.

The Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Charles Esimone, decried the ‘expanding breath and intensity of security challenges’, describing it as a threat to the general elections.