*May be released on bail
The detained leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, will appear before Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court in Abuja on Thursday, the IPOB leader’s Special Counsel, Aloy Ejimakor, has revealed.
Ejimakor told The PUNCH that the court granted an abridgement of time after a motion was filed by his client.
However, TBI Africa learnt that today’s emergency hearing could lead to Kanu’s release on bail.
Justice Nyako had on November 10, 2021, adjourned the trial of Kanu till January 19 and 20, 2022, for trial.
But the court granted an abridgement of time after a motion was filed in that respect.
“There will be a hearing tomorrow. It wasn’t scheduled before. The court granted our motion for abridgement of time,” Ejimakor said.
Kanu, 54, was born on September 25, 1967, at Afaraukwu, Abia State. He had been arrested in 2017 for demanding the secession of the South-East zone from the Nigerian State.
However, he jumped bail in June 2018 before leaving for the United Kingdom, though he said that he fled because his life was no longer safe in Nigeria.
After about three years abroad, 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.
Ejimakor had said the IPOB leader was re-arrested in Kenya and whisked to Nigeria.
Upon his re-arrest and extradition in June 2021, he was re-arraigned before Justice Nyako for terrorism-related charges brought against him by the AGF office. Kanu has since been remanded in the custody of the Department of State Services in Abuja.
Some respected Igbo elders, led by Minister of Aviation in the First Republic, Chief Mbazulike Amaechi, had recently visited the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) in Aso Rock and requested the unconditional release of the detained secessionist leader.
Buhari had told them he would not want to interfere in the running of the judiciary but said he would consider their demand though “a heavy one.”
