Aloy Ejimakor, counsel to Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), says it is only his client that possesses “the vires to lead any dialogue”.
Ejimakor insists Kanu, a Biafra separatist leader, must be released by Nigerian authorities before any sort of dialogue can start.
“Nobody can initiate any dialogue until Onyendu #Kanu is released. This must be the 1st step, because it’s only MNK that has the vires to lead any dialogue. The release of Mandela from prison was the 1st step in the dialogue that led to ending apartheid in South Africa,” Ejimakor wrote via his Twitter handle.
Igbo leaders had declared a Biafran state in 1967, but after a brutal civil war, which led to the deaths of up to a million people, the secessionist rebellion was defeated.
Nnamdi Kanu is the latest in a line of ethnic Igbo activists taking up the cause of pushing for an independent state, saying the Igbos have been marginalised by successive Nigerian governments.
He is being prosecuted on charges of treasonable felony and terrorism.
The charges, according to the prosecution, arose from the 54-year-old’s violent separatist agitations for a Republic of Biafra constituted by Igbo-dominated South-eastern part of Nigeria.
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