President Buhari has said the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, should defend himself in court for peddling false information about his regime while he was overseas.
There have been a lot pressure on President Buhari to release Nnamdi Kanu including a recent visit by Igbo elders led by Minister of Aviation in the First Republic, Chief Mbazulike Amaechi.
During the visit recently, President Buhari had told them he would not want to interfere in the running of the judiciary but said he would consider their demand though it is a heavy.
But speaking during Channels Television interview, the President said, “There is one institution that I wouldn’t interfere with, that is judiciary, Nnamdi Kanu’s case is in the hands of the judiciary but what I wonder is when Nnamdi Kanu was in Europe, abusing this administration, I thought he will come and defend himself on the accusations.
“The law is giving him an opportunity to defend himself, not to be abusing us abroad as if he was not a Nigerian. Let him come here and then criticise us here. Nigerians know that I don’t interfere with the judiciary, let him be listened to.”
When asked about the possibility for political solution, President Buhari said, “There is a possibility of political solution. If people behave well and good. You can’t go to a foreign country and keep on sending untrue economic and security problems against our country and thinking that you would not account for what you have been doing. Let him account for what he has been doing.”
Nnamdi Kanu, 54 from Abia State was first arrested in 2017 for demanding the secession of the South-East zone from Nigeria.
Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami at a press briefing in Abuja on June 29, 2021, announced that the IPOB leader was re-arrested in a foreign country and extradited to Nigeria though Nnamdi Kanu’s lawyers said he was re-arrested in Kenya and whisked to Nigeria.
Upon his re-arrest in June 2021, Nnamdi Kanu was re-arraigned before Justice Binta Nyako for terrorism-related charges brought against him by the Attorney-General of the Federation’s office.
Nnamdi Kanu has since been remanded in the custody of the Department of State Services in Abuja while his trial is to continue on January 18, 2022.
