Kanu loses appeal against UK over detention

The leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, has lost his appeal against the United Kingdom (UK) government regarding his detention in Nigeria.

Kanu has been detained at the facility of the Department of State Service (DSS) since he was rearrested in Kenya and brought back to Nigeria in June 2021, after fleeing the country in 2017.

The IPOB leader, who holds both British and Nigerian citizenship, had filed an appeal in London last year, seeking the UK government’s intervention in his case with the Nigerian government.

Kanu had approached the UK courts to obtain an order compelling the Federal Government to take a stand and publicly condemn his detention.

He sued the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), also known as the Foreign Secretary, as the representative of the UK government in London.

The court, however, dismissed his case on Thursday, March 23, 2023.

Kanu, then, filed an appeal with the Civil Division of the Court of Appeal, Royal Courts of Justice, in London, to challenge the High Court’s ruling.

Meanwhile, the Court of Appeal, on July 7, upheld the High Court’s ruling, stating that it could not interfere in the UK government’s decision concerning the IPOB leader’s detention and conditions in Nigeria.

The three-member panel said it could not force the Foreign Secretary to take a firm position on the matter while the Nigerian government’s case against Kanu was still pending at Nigeria’s Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, Kanu’s family has debunked that the Special Counsel the the IPOB’s leader, Aloy Ejimakor, has been sacked as allegedly announced by group’s spokesman, Emma Powerful, in a statement.

The family denied the sack in a statement dated August 2, 2023, which was issued by his (Kanu ) brother, Kingsley Kanu, from Germany.

The statement reads in part: “We, the family of Nnamdi Kanu, state categorically that the statement by Powerful is false and defamatory in its entirety. Accordingly, Aloy Ejimakor has not been sacked as a Special Counsel to Kanu and IPOB. He remains such a Special Counsel in good standing until Kanu says otherwise.”