{"id":1512,"date":"2024-07-04T08:53:55","date_gmt":"2024-07-04T08:53:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/?p=1512"},"modified":"2024-07-04T08:54:02","modified_gmt":"2024-07-04T08:54:02","slug":"ethnic-bias-behind-nnamdi-kanus-prolonged-detention-kenneth-okonkwo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/2024\/07\/04\/ethnic-bias-behind-nnamdi-kanus-prolonged-detention-kenneth-okonkwo\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethnic Bias Behind Nnamdi Kanu\u2019s Prolonged Detention \u2013 Kenneth Okonkwo"},"content":{"rendered":"

A chieftain of the Labour Party, Kenneth Okonkwo, has attributed the prolonged detention of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB<\/a>, Nnamdi Kanu, to ethnic bias.<\/p>\n

Okonkwo made this statement on Wednesday during an interview on Arise TV monitored by Beadysword blog<\/p>\n

Recall that the IPOB leader<\/a> has been in the custody of the Department of State Services, DSS, since he was extradited from Kenya in June 2021.<\/p>\n

He is currently facing terrorism charges filed against him at the federal high court.<\/p>\n

There have been calls for Kanu\u2019s release, especially by stakeholders from the south-east region.<\/p>\n

In June, 50 members of the House of Representatives asked President Bola Tinubu to order for Kanu\u2019s release.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, governors under the umbrella of the South-East Governors\u2019 Forum also resolved to meet with Tinubu to seek the release of the separatist leader.<\/p>\n

The South-East region has witnessed an upsurge of activities of gunmen who violently enforce a sit-at-home order on Mondays to demand Kanu\u2019s release.<\/p>\n

Okonkwo claimed that Kanu is being held in detention due to \u201cethnic bias,\u201d adding that he has not committed worse crimes like other separatists whose cases in court have been dropped.<\/p>\n

\u201cNnamdi Kanu has not done anything that other people from other zones have done.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know about Sunday Igboho of the Yoruba nation agitator. We know of the Boko Haram people who say that they want a different country where they will be free from western education, that\u00a0 Western education is an abomination.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese people have been released, not just that they have been released; in the case of Boko Haram, they have been assimilated into society and given plum jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy is Nnamdi Kanu\u2019s case different? There is an ethnic and some unnecessary bias that is keeping that man in jail.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government should be wise enough to release this man. You can release him conditionally or unconditionally.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a lawyer, I have watched the legal issues very clearly, and I saw that even in the courts, from the high court to the supreme court, there are discordant tunes amongst them.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven in the issue of bail, some of the tiers of the court have granted him bail. Even in the issue of the charges, some tiers of the court have quashed all the charges.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, you can see that the government has a lot of places it can stand to release the young man and bring peace to the South-East.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is now more like a political prisoner. The longer Nnamdi Kanu is in prison, the taller he becomes and the shorter the government becomes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Nollywood veteran-turned politician urged the federal government to \u201ctake the intelligent way out\u201d by releasing Kanu as it did to other separatists.<\/p>\n

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A chieftain of the Labour Party, Kenneth Okonkwo, has attributed the prolonged detention of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu, to ethnic bias. Okonkwo made this statement on Wednesday...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1512"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1514,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1512\/revisions\/1514"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}