HURIWA tackles FG over continued detention of Nnamdi Kanu

Civil rights group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has said the continued detention of the leader of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) by the federal government is totally unconstitutional and illegal.

According to the National coordinator of the group, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, the handling of the matter filed before the Federal High Court presided over by Justice Binta Murtallah-Nyako has been anything but fair and just.

He said the Federal Attorney General and Minister of Justice has demonstrated an unacceptable level of lawlessness and non-adherence to the due process and has shown disrespect and disregard to the rule of law.

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“The federal government of President Muhammadu Buhari has treated Mazi Nnamdi Kanu as a hostage or prisoner of conscience or something even worse than that.

“They are treating him as a tenant in a labour camp of pre-1945 Second World War era or as one of the 6 million Jews murdered in the gas chambers by the then repressive pre-WW2 GERMAN GOVERNMENT.

He said the constant illegal and provocative amendment of charges and the frequent multiplication of same charges by the federal government are primitive, callous, wicked.

“The ugly fact that the government has amended Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s charges for more than four times which is targeted at delaying the trial of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is against constitutional democracy because JUSTICE DELAYED IS JUSTICE DENIED and because Nigerian Constitution has clearly spelt out the principle of check and balances among three arms of government, these backward tendencies of government to obstruct the quick dispensation of justice is grotesque and unnatural.

“The constitutional principles of checks and balances are between the three arms of government namely, the legislative, the judiciary and the executive arms of government. But what the Attorney general has done in Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s case is that he has hijacked the function of the judicial arm through subterfuge exemplified by the constant illegal amendments of charges against Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.

“It is not enough that Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court in Abuja had warned the Department of the State Services against taking over the security arrangement of the court on February 16 until 12 pm.

“The court instructed DSS to only take control of the court security arrangement when the trial of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, on terrorism charges resumes.

“Nyako complained that trials of other cases are affected each time Kanu’s trial takes place due to heavy security presence and blockade of roads leading to the court.