Kenneth Okonkwo, a Labour Party member, believes that ethnic bias is the reason why Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of IPOB, has been detained for a long period. Okonkwo made this statement during an interview on Arise Television on Wednesday.
According to the Labour Party member, Nnamdi Kanu has not committed more serious offenses compared to other separatists whose court cases have been dismissed.
In his words,he said, “Nnamdi Kanu has not done anything that other people from other zones have done.
“We 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 Western education is an abomination.
“These people have been released, not just that they have been released; in the case of Boko Haram, they have been reassimilated into society and given plum jobs.
“Why is Nnamdi Kanu’s case different? There is an ethnic and some unnecessary bias that is keeping that man in jail.
“The government should be wise enough to release this man. You can release him conditionally or unconditionally.
“As 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.
“Even 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.
“So, 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.
“He is now more like a political prisoner. The longer Nnamdi Kanu is in prison, the taller he becomes and the shorter the government becomes.”
The veteran Nollywood actor, who has now ventured into politics, appealed to the federal government to handle the situation intelligently by releasing Nnamdi Kanu, just as it has done with other separatist leaders. It is worth noting that Kanu has been held in the custody of the Department of State Services (DSS) since his extradition from Kenya in June 2021.
