Nnamdi Kanu, the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), has written to United States President Donald Trump, appealing for international intervention in what he called a hidden genocide against Judeo-Christians in Nigeria’s southeast.
The appeal came hours before a Federal High Court deadline that could compel him to open his defence in a terrorism case that has lingered for over four years.
In the four-page open letter dated November 6 and shared by lawyer, Ifeanyi Ejimakor, Kanu linked his plea to Trump’s recent comments accusing the Nigerian government of allowing the mass killing of Christians.
The IPOB leader, who has been in solitary detention since his controversial rendition from Kenya in June 2021, asked Washington to impose sanctions, open a congressional inquiry, and back a referendum on Biafran self-determination.
Addressing Trump as a fellow adherent to Judeo-Christian values, the 57-year-old accused the Nigerian government of state-sponsored massacres of Igbo communities.
He cited five major incidents, including the 2016 Nkpor and Aba killings, the 2017 Operation Python Dance raids, and the 2020 Obigbo incident, which Amnesty International and the United Nations have previously documented as serious human rights violations.
Amnesty’s August 2025 report, A Decade of Impunity: Attacks and Unlawful Killings in Southeast Nigeria, documented more than 1,800 people killed between January 2021 and June 2023.
It accused both state and non-state actors, including the military and the Ebube Agu paramilitary force, of carrying out killings, enforced disappearances, and arbitrary detentions.
The Nigerian government has denied the allegations, blaming insecurity on armed groups known locally as unknown gunmen.
Kanu argued that the violence has transformed from jihadist groups in the north into the southeast, claiming that security forces, not insurgents, were responsible for much of the bloodshed.
He also urged the US to invoke the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act against specific Nigerian officials, including former army chief Tukur Buratai, now ambassador to Benin, and Department of State Services Director Yusuf Bichi.
Washington has yet to respond to Kanu’s letter. However, the issue adds pressure to bilateral relations already strained by human rights concerns and ongoing debates over US aid linked to counterterrorism operations in the country.
Meanwhile, despite a 2022 Court of Appeal ruling acquitting him of terrorism charges, the Supreme Court overturned that decision in December 2023, reinstating a seven-count indictment related to his broadcasts promoting secession.
The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention declared his confinement unlawful in its Opinion No. 25/2022.
The Federal High Court in Abuja is due to reconvene his case on Thursday. Justice James Omotosho has ordered Kanu to either open his defence or forfeit the right to do so after the prosecution closed its case in June.
Since IPOB’s 2017 proscription as a terrorist organisation, a label the US has refused to adopt, security operations in the southeast have intensified. Rights groups say hundreds of IPOB members have been killed or detained since then.
The movement continues to demand a referendum to restore the former Republic of Biafra, which existed briefly from 1967 to 1970 during Nigeria’s civil war.
Neither Nigeria’s presidency nor Trump’s office had issued any formal response as of press time.
