Anambra State Governor, Chukwuma Soludo, has stated that the freedom of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), and the security challenges in the South-East are separate matters.
Kanu has been held by the Department of State Services (DSS) for approximately five years, following his arrest in Kenya by the Nigerian government, despite numerous calls for his release.
While some believe Kanu’s release would alleviate insecurity in the South-East, Governor Soludo, a vocal advocate for his release, clarified during his third-anniversary media chat on Monday: “The release of Nnamdi Kanu for me is different from the issue of security, I separate the two, I don’t link the two.”
He further explained, “Nnamdi Kanu for me is for us to have a conversation of a long-term future for the Igbos and that is a different conversation. For the criminals who are kidnappers, we have given them an olive branch, come out, we will train you, we will empower you, we will rehabilitate you, if you don’t we take you out.”
Soludo emphasized that his continued appeal for Kanu’s release is aimed at facilitating his participation in broader discussions about the Igbo people’s future.
However, he acknowledged that while he advocated for Kanu’s release, “a whole lot of this Simon Ekpa and some of this his band of criminals took over and turned the things into a killing spree, just killing people with reckless abandon.”
Simon Ekpa, who declared himself IPOB leader after Kanu’s arrest, was apprehended in Finland, his place of residence, by Finnish authorities last November for “public exhortation to an offence, committed with terrorist intent.”
Governor Soludo expressed that he is unaware of Ekpa’s objectives, beyond “to swindle people for money.”
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