S’East senators meet AGF, writes Tinubu over Kanu

The lawmakers led by Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe on Wednesday also submitted a passionate letter to President Bola Tinubu to intervene in the release of Kanu.

According to the senators, unless Kanu is released, the social and economic activities in the South East zone will continue to be stagnant.

Abaribe, who spoke to newsmen on behalf of his colleagues, lamented that the economy and social life in the South East had suffered enough due to the continued incarceration of the Biafra nation agitator.

Abaribe noted with concern that the peaceful demand of the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) had been hijacked by hoodlums and hardened criminals leading to wanton killings of innocent people, including security operatives.

The former deputy governor in Abia State and surety of Kanu in 2017, said he had already met the IPOB leader at the headquarters of the Department of State Services (DSS) in Abuja on Monday and he agreed to abide by any conditional release.

Senator Abaribe expressed optimism that once Kanu is released, the tension and acrimony engulfing the South East zone since 2021 he had been in the DSS custody would become a thing of the past.

Kanu, who had in September 2017 jumped bail after his residence in Afara-Ukwu, Umuahia, Abia State, was invaded during a military crackdown, was re-arrested in Kenya in 2021 and renditioned to Nigeria by the federal government to face fresh terrorism charges.

Although he pleaded not guilty to the charges, Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court in Abuja declined to grant him bail on the ground that he jumped the earlier one.

Similarly, the governors of the five South East states had after their meeting in Enugu on Tuesday resolved to meet President Tinubu to plead for Kanu’s release.