Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, (HURIWA), has urged President Bola Tinubu to release the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu as a way to begin national reconciliation and healing in the country.
HURIWA, in a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko said the continued detention of Kanu by the Department of State Services two years after he was abducted from Kenya despite an Appeal Court order releasing the IPOB leader is a flagrant disregard for the rule of law and principle of justice.
The group said President Tinubu should consider Kanu’s release as a gift to the South-East geopolitical zone which was marginalized and unfairly treated by the immediate past administration.
HURIWA, which backed the appeal by Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu State, urged President Tinubu to enforce Kanu’s release in accordance with the Appeal Court verdict and hand the IPOB leader to any of the five governors in the South-East.
The group urged Governors Ogbonna Nwifuru (Ebonyi), Alex Otti (Abia), Hope Uzodimma (Imo), and Chukwuma Soludo (Anambra) to emulate the new Enugu State governor by declaring an end to the Monday sit-at-home, currently paralysing trade, commerce, creativity, entrepreneurship, and productivity in the South-East zone.
On Thursday, at the end of his first security council meeting with the heads of all the security agencies at the Government House, Enugu, Governor Mbah appealed to the new President to release Kanu, saying that it will be a pointer to President Tinubu’s administration’s extension of brotherly hands of fellowship to Ndigbo.
Mbah also expressed his government’s readiness “to engage in dialogue with people, who have genuine grievances towards bringing lasting peace and security to Enugu State.”
He also signed three Executive Orders including Executive Order 002 for the removal of ‘Unauthorized Street Barriers Across the State Within 100 Days’.
HURIWA’s Onwubiko said, “We commend Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu State for the courageous decision to remove unauthorized barriers and checkpoints across the state during his first 100 days in office.
“We also commend the governor’s decision to announce an end to the sit-at-home tearing down commerce in the East with billions lost every Monday.
“Governor Mbah’s determination to find lasting solution to the insecurity in Enugu State should be emulated by the other governors in the zone who should rise up and find a lasting template to end the scourge ravaging Igboland.”
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