United States-based lawyer, High Chief Owolabi Salis has pleaded with the Federal Government to release from detention the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader,Mazi,Nnamdi Kanu.
The Ikorodu-born Lagosian who in 2019,contested for governorship on the platform of Alliance For Democrac (AD), said there is an urgent need to free the IPOB leader, as ‘he has been held in detention for too long’.
“Remember that the embattled young man had languished in detention since 2015, during which he had been in and out of hospital due to his health, which had been gravely imperiled. Moreover, there had been injunctions from the court, ruling that he should be released.
‘’I am therefore of the strong opinion that Kanu should not be held a minute longer,but rather be released immediately without delay in the interest of justice, said the Lawyer-politican.”
“Politically, by releasing Kanu, Tinubu would be endearing the general mass of the Igbo not only to himself, but his administration with the immensely unifying and integrative effect for national growth, peace and stability, just as the presidential Prerogative of Mercy would also go a long way in availing the much-needed balm to erase the hitherto lingering wound of the Biafran experience.”
“The gesture would also be in keeping with the genetic and culturally endemic passion of the Yoruba for fairness and justice and their historical antecedents as the earliest race to embrace Western education and its associated system of Western liberal democracy and belief in the rule of law.”
“It will also align with your antecedents as a NADECO activist during the harrowing era of military despotism,and your unflagging pursuit of the rule of law, especially through the several legal litigations initiated by you against the prevailing powers of the moment in the pursuit of social justice. Also during your years as Governor of Lagos State and your post-governorship years as the arrowhead of the progressives and the forces of political opposition, ‘’ Salis appealed to Tinubu.
According to him, government could tie Kanu’s release on the legally binding provison of signing an affidavit of good behavior, shunning any form of incitement, divisive and hate pronouncements, if released. “I’m sure that by now, the IPOB leader would have learnt a lot going by his severely traumatising experience in the course of his protracted spell of incarceration. I have no doubt that he has already turned a new leaf. Besides,we should also not forget that the likes of Sowore, Igboho were also pardoned in the past. Enjoining the government and the citizens to shun every vestige of prejudice which possibly might be harboured against the Igbo and rather accept them as fellow brethren in the drive towards a greater Nigeria, he also admonished the Igbo on the other hand, to shed every toga of Biafran separatism for the collectively encompassing vision of national unity. “Our Igbo brethren should rather harness the immensely God-given potentials for which they are popularly known towards the Noble task of lifting the nation to a higher paradigm of growth and progress”,Salis.
