RESPECT 2022 UN ORDER TO RELEASE NNAMDI KANU, COUNSEL TELLS TINUBU

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Aloy Ejimakor, the special counsel to the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, has urged President Bola Tinubu to implement the order of the United Nations Human Rights Council Working Group to release the IPOB leader.

Ejimakor said the president should not follow in the footsteps of his predecessor, former President Muhammadu Buhari, who ignored the UN’s orders to release Kanu.

The IPOB leader’s lawyer stated this in a statement issued on Saturday.

Kanu has been in the custody of the Department of State Services since June 2021.

In July 2022, the UNHRC through a landmark opinion issued by its Working Group directed Buhari’s administration to free Kanu.

The group also asked that the ex-president should accord him a pathway to compensation for Kanu’s arrest and rendition from Kenya to Nigeria.

Referring to the order on Kanu’s freedom, Ejimakor said the Federal Government was bound by the directives and orders from international laws and treaties because of the country’s membership.

Ejimakor said, “Nigeria is duty-bound to implement this decision in its black letters and spirit. And it was expected to do so promptly.

“Nonetheless, it is never too late to act, even as Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has, for three and half years, endured the horrendous rigours of a detention that is bereft of any legal justification.”

The lawyer called on Tinubu to free Kanu, saying the president did not need any court order to let the IPOB leader regain his freedom.