Detained pro-Biafra leader ready for talks with Nigeria's government

The lawyer of jailed pro-Biafra leader Nnamdi Kanu says his client has no connection with the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) or any other militant group and expressed his willingness to negotiate with the government to end the agitation for self-governance.

Kanu who is the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra is facing trial for alleged treason and has been in detention since October 2015. His arrest provoked a wave of protests across the southeast and revived calls for the independence of Biafra.

“It is on that note that we wish to inform the whole world and the Nigerian public that Nnamdi Kanu has no connection whatsoever, contact, ties and any form of relationship with the members of MEND,” his lawyer Ifeanyi Ejiofor said.

“As such the members of the movement for the emancipation of the Niger Delta have no implied, direct or express authority of Nnamdi Kanu to represent him or the independent people of Biafra in any purported negotiation going on between MEND and the federal government,” Ejiofor added.

Ejiofor accused Nigeria’s judicial officers of being partisan and called for the release of his client.

“You will recall also that his lordship AFA Ademola of the federal high court of Abuja made an order on the 17th of December 2015. When the court directed the SSS (state security service) to release Nnamdi Kanu unconditionally. It was not an order to release him pending the filing of another charge against him. That order made by his lordship Justice Ademola is yet to be obeyed till today.”

Pro-Biafrans have been calling for the independence of their territory which was forcibly annexed to modern-day Nigeria during British colonization.

The attempted secession of Biafra launched in 1967 resulted in a civil war that killed about one million people.