On Monday, a Nigerian judge rejected separatist leader Nnamdi Kanu’s request to be transferred from the Department of State Services (DSS), a security agency, to prison, as well as to deny him bail for the second time in two months.
Leading the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) movement, Kanu is a British national who was initially detained in 2015 and vanished from Nigeria while awaiting bail in 2017.
After that, in 2021, he was detained in Kenya and accused with seven acts of terrorism in Nigeria. Kanu entered a not guilty plea.
Kanu denied violating the terms of his 2017 bail, claiming that he fled for his life when soldiers stormed his ancestral home in the state of Abia, in southern Nigeria.
Kanu jumped bail given to him in 2017, according to Judge Binta Murtala Nyako, who denied him bail in March. “Appealing is one of your options. The court said, “Please use your right of appeal.
But after his bail plea was turned down on Monday, Kanu exploded in court, claiming he would never be tried in a Nigerian court.
The IPOB, led by Kanu, advocates for the secession of southeast Nigeria, an area where the Igbo ethnic group predominates. IPOB has been designated as a terrorist organization by Nigerian authorities.
In 1967, the year Kanu was born, the area attempted to declare itself the Republic of Biafra, which led to a three-year civil war that claimed the lives of over a million people.
