The Anglican Archbishop of Niger Province and Bishop of Awka, Rt. Rev. Alexander Ibezim, has called on President Bola Tinubu to release the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, for peace to reign, asserting that the agitator’s continued incarceration is a national embarrassment.
Ibezim, who made this call during the 13th Synod of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion, themed, ‘Running the Christian Race: Implications for the Church in Perilous Times,’ observed that Eastern Nigeria has suffered a lot. According to him, for Nigeria to be peaceful, the Igbo must be given a chance in the national leadership of the country.
He noted that justice delayed is justice denied. He said: “The truth remains that injustice sets back a nation, and once an ideology about injustice is imbibed into a people, no amount of force can quell it unless justice is done.”
The archbishop said that the church should continually embark on a race, guided by the rules, genuineness, goal-orientation, endurance, discipline and perseverance to win, wondering if the current generation is not living in perilous times prophesied by Daniel.
In his remarks, the Bishop of Oji River, Joseph Egbuonu, contended that Nigeria appears upside down, as the current situation calls for surgery at the foundational level to structurally revive the country or opt for something else.
Meanwhile, a group, under the aegis of American Military Veterans of Igbo Descent (AMVID), has faulted, the presiding Judge of the Abuja Federal High Court, Justice Binta Murtala Nyko, who is hearing Kanu’s case, for allegedly not obeying the Supreme Court judgment, describing Kanu as “a prisoner of conscience.”
The group, in a letter to the Judge, dated May 1, 2024, stated: “The judge’s refusal to comply with the Supreme Court judgment, and the lack of willingness to interpret the Constitution fairly are truly embarrassing and humiliating for the judicial system, Nigeria and the whole world.”
AMVID’s letter, which was jointly signed by Dr. Sylvester Onyia and Dr Godson Obiagwu , President and Secretary of the group, respectively, was made available to journalists at the weekend. It called for Kanu’s release, noting that the IPOB leader should have been taken to a correctional centre and not kept in a Federal Government privately owned detention centre where his conversations with his lawyers and family members are always monitored.
