The governor of Anambra State, Chukwuma Soludo, has said releasing the leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, from detention and insecurity in the South-East are two different issues.
Some stakeholders in the South East have said that the release of Kanu would help deflate the security challenges in the South East. Kanu has been in detention by the Department of State Services (DSS) for about 5 years since his arrest from Kenya by the Nigerian government despite calls from different quarters for his release.
While speaking in a media chat to celebrate his third anniversary, Governor Soludo, who is among those who have been calling for Kanu’s release said;
“The release of Nnamdi Kanu for me is different from the issue of security, I separate the two, I don’t link the two. 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 said his continued appeal for the release of the IPOB leader is to have him around so that he could be a part of a broader discussion to decide the future of the Igbo people.
However, the governor recalled that whilst he continued his appeal 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 claimed to have taken over as IPOB leader upon Kanu’s arrest, was arrested in Finland where he resides in November last year by the Finnish police for what it termed “public exhortation to an offence, committed with terrorist intent.”
Governor Soludo said that he has no idea what Ekpa is pursuing other than to “swindle people for money.”
