Biafra separatist leader and UK national, Nnamdi Kanu was arrested by Nigerian authorities in Kenya and taken to Nigeria in an act of extraordinary rendition, his family and lawyers have claimed. (Read More Here).
Nnamdi Kanu, a British-Nigerian citizen, fled Nigeria in 2017 while on bail facing charges of terrorism and incitement. He was arrested last week and brought to Nigeria’s capital, Abuja.
Kanu was first charged in 2015, when Biafra secessionist mass protests erupted in Nigeria for the first time since the Biafra civil war. The conflict is one of the darkest chapters in Nigerian history and the bitter legacy still reverberates in Nigeria.
Kanu’s whereabouts had been unknown since he left Nigeria in 2017, after soldiers attacked his home in Abia state during one of a number of military operations against separatist agitators in the region.
His brother Kingsley Kanu said he had spoken to him while he was in Kenya, days before he went missing in June.
“I spoke to him on the phone, he was well, in Nairobi. His associates said he went out, he didn’t take his documents with him so he wasn’t planning on going anywhere. Then all of a sudden we see him paraded in handcuffs in Abuja,” Kingsley Kanu said.
“It is an extraordinary rendition, aided by Kenyan authorities,” he said.
“It is an outrage that cannot be allowed to happen. We are holding the Nigerian government and Kenyan government responsible. The British government, they know what is happening,” he said, adding that UK officials had made contact with Kanu’s family and legal team and that there were concerns he would be abused in detention.
Kanu was not in possession of a Nigerian passport, his family said, and he has verbally renounced Nigerian citizenship in broadcasts.
The abduction of a person from a foreign country with the aim of rendition to justice is illegal under international law.
Nigerian and Kenyan authorities have denied that Kenya was involved in the arrest, while the UK consulate in Nigeria has said it contacted Nigeria’s government concerning the case.
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