The UK Government has abandoned Nnamdi Kanu, a British-Nigerian political activist who campaigned for independence for his homeland after he was seized and tortured by security forces, IPOB has claimed in a statement.
Nnamdi Kanu spent years running a radio station from his home in south London, but has been held in solitary confinement for two years by Nigerian security services who seized the activist in Kenya and illegally spirited him back to the country.
His family say he is being held in a small, windowless cell despite a Nigerian appeal court dropping all charges against him and ruling that his arrest and extradition were unlawful. The United Nations has also called for his immediate release.
His lawyers accuse the UK Government of doing too little to push for his release and failing to condemn his mistreatment, even though he was travelling on a UK passport when seized. They also fear his life may be in danger in prison.
“This is a serious matter which we would have expected the British Government to be very vocal and reactive about,” Ifeanyi Ejiofor, one of Mr Kanu’s legal team, told The Telegraph.
“The UK Government has not done much. The Foreign Secretary has so far failed to reach any view.”
Mr Kanu is leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra group, and for years ran Radio Biafra from his flat in Peckham, calling for independence for the region in south-eastern Nigeria.The region briefly seceded in the late 1960s, prompting civil war and the deaths of at least a million people, before the breakaway was blockaded and starved into surrender.
Although popular among many Biafrans for raising calls for a referendum on independence, Mr Kanu is a divisive figure, and some in the Nigerian government see him as a potentially dangerous rabble rouser who raises the spectre of renewed civil strife. His group is proscribed as a terrorist outfit in Nigeria.The region briefly seceded in the late 1960s, prompting civil war and the deaths of at least a million people, before the breakaway was blockaded and starved into surrender.
Although popular among many Biafrans for raising calls for a referendum on independence, Mr Kanu is a divisive figure, and some in the Nigerian government see him as a potentially dangerous rabble rouser who raises the spectre of renewed civil strife. His group is proscribed as a terrorist outfit in Nigeria.The region briefly seceded in the late 1960s, prompting civil war and the deaths of at least a million people, before the breakaway was blockaded and starved into surrender.
Although popular among many Biafrans for raising calls for a referendum on independence, Mr Kanu is a divisive figure, and some in the Nigerian government see him as a potentially dangerous rabble rouser who raises the spectre of renewed civil strife. His group is proscribed as a terrorist outfit in Nigeria.

