The Pan-Igbo socio-political pressure group, the South East Revival Group (SERG), has urged the Federal Government to comply with resolutions of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, to avert fresh crisis amidst the current insecurity in most parts of the country. 

The group said the UN had recently indicted both Nigerian and Kenyan governments for the extraordinary rendition, torture and continued detention of the IPOB leader without due process. 

Consequently, the UN resolved and recommended to the Federal Government to immediately release Kanu unconditionally. 

In a statement at the weekend, signed by the National Coordinator of SERG, Chief Willy Ezugwu, the group urged the Federation Government to be responsible and reasonable in handling the recommendations of the UN as part of the bitter pills Nigeria must take to reduce armed struggle in the country. 

The statement reads: “For the UN to ask the Federal Government to pay compensation for the arbitrary violation of the fundamental human rights of Kanu, it has become clear that the world body has found grave infractions in the process of rendition and detention of the IPOB leader.

“The President Muhammadu Buhari administration must be proactive enough to immediately free Kanu and open a channel for addressing root causes of the renewed Biafran agitations in the South East in the interest of peace, security and national integration. 

“The Federal Government must learn lessons from the unfortunate but avoidable insurgency in the North East, which has spread to other parts of the country and escalated as a result of the arbitrary killing of the Boko Haram founder, Mohammed Yusuf. 

“The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government, rather than arresting and prosecuting the extra-judicial killers of Yusuf and opening a window for dialogue to address the remote causes of their uprising, ignored the group until it grew into a monster terrorising parts of the country from 2009 to date. 

“The sense of injustice on the part of the followers of Yusuf is the cause of the widespread insurgency in the North East of Nigeria, consuming a reasonable chunk of the country’s national budget with attendant loss of life and property. Such security miscalculations should and must be avoided in all parts of the country. 

“We, therefore, call on Buhari to immediately order the unconditional release of Kanu and open a channel for dialogue with aggrieved citizens, not only in the South East but across the country, to find lasting peace in the country.
 

“This has become expedient as the Nigerian security forces would eventually be overwhelmed if avoidable war fronts are opened in parts of the country, which will be inimical to national peace and development.”