The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), under the leadership of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, has demanded an end to the prosecution of Biafrans.
In a statement issued in Owerri, the IPOB spokesperson and Media and Publicity Secretary, Comrade Emma Powerful, described the recent release of four Biafrans, who had been held in the custody of the Department of State Services (DSS) for approximately four years, as an indictment of the system.
The group, however, demanded the release of all Biafrans it said were unlawfully detained, as well as an end to the criminalisation of IPOB membership.
It also called for immediate intervention by the United Nations, the United States Government and the European Union over what it described as Nigeria’s kangaroo judicial system targeting Biafrans.
IPOB said: “While their return to their families is noted, let nobody mistake the release of four men for the resolution of this national injustice.”
According to Powerful, the reported release of four Biafrans after four years in DSS custody had once again exposed what he described as the machinery of persecution directed against the people.
The spokesperson said IPOB’s legal team had formally identified 83 Biafrans who were secretly transferred from military custody at the Wawa Barracks in Kainji, Niger State, and were currently being held in correctional facilities in Kuje, Keffi and Suleja.
He said: “Our lawyers have formally communicated the names of their legal representatives to the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation.”
He added that many others remained trapped in a system that had turned Biafran identity and alleged IPOB membership into grounds for arrest, prosecution and imprisonment. He said some were serving life sentences.
Describing the situation, he said it was not merely a law enforcement issue but the criminalisation of an entire people through the abuse of state power.
He pointed out that the legal foundation repeatedly invoked to justify the alleged persecution was fundamentally defective.
He said: “The IPOB proscription was made through a civil ex parte process. Even a poorly trained legal practitioner knows that an ex parte order—obtained in the absence of the affected party—cannot confer criminal liability or serve as the lawful basis to strip citizens of their liberty and send them to prison for life.”
He said the instrument lacked the President’s statutory approval required under Section 2(1)(c) of the Terrorism (Prevention) Act 2013, adding that the signature of a Chief of Staff could not replace an act that the National Assembly had expressly entrusted to the President.
According to him, a statutory condition imposed on the President could not be fulfilled by another official merely because that official occupied a powerful office.
Powerful said Justice James Omotosho had recognised the importance of mandatory statutory compliance in MultiChoice Nigeria Ltd v. FCCPC, adding that the same law could not suddenly acquire a different meaning when the rights of Biafrans were at stake.
He said: “If a statutory instrument cannot survive the absence of the approval required by law in the case of MultiChoice, the same defect cannot be excused when the instrument is used against IPOB. One law for MultiChoice and another for Biafrans is not the rule of law. It is judicial and governmental double standards.”
He also referred to what he described as a subsisting inter partes ruling that IPOB was not an unlawful society, adding that the government, the DSS and prosecuting authorities could not disregard the ruling.
IPOB declared that the civil ex parte proscription instrument and the subsisting inter partes ruling raised legal questions that must be addressed rather than concealed.
He said an appeal concerning IPOB’s status and the legality of its proscription was pending before the Supreme Court, insisting that the government could not treat the issues as settled merely because it found the proscription convenient.
He said: “No Biafran should be serving a life sentence merely because the government has labelled him an IPOB member. The prosecution must prove a legally defined offence against each individual.”
The IPOB spokesperson added that political association could not replace proof, just as an executive label could not replace a valid law or make a defective instrument lawful through repeated reliance on it.
He demanded that the Nigerian Government account for the 83 people identified in Keffi, Suleja and Kuje, as well as every other Biafran in detention.
He said: “It must account for those serving life sentences. It must account for every individual held or unaccounted for at the Wawa military facility. And it must answer for the years stolen from people who were arrested and imprisoned under this regime of discrimination.”
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