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The weekly Mondays sit-at-home persisted yesterday in the commercial city of Onitsha, Anambra state and its environs as commercial activities remained grounded, despite last Thursday’s discharge of the leader of Indigenous People of Biafra, IPoB, Nnamdi Kanu, by the Court of Appeal.
As usual, offices, businesses, markets and banks were shut, just as vehicular movements were restricted in major highways, streets and urban areas from morning till evening.
The questions on the lips of the residents were whether the federal government not want to obey the court order in releasing Kanu and for what?
Reacting to the development, a private medical practitioner in Onitsha, Dr Boniface Agbala expressed concern that President Muhammadu Buhari who told Igbo leaders point blank shortly after Kanu’s rendition to Nigeria that Kanu should go through court trials, has now chosen to disobey court verdict.
According to Dr Agbala who is also the medical director of Model Hospital and Maternity, Onitsha, the federal government should understand that Kanu’s case has come to a dead end.
“At least, for now, there is no more any charge hanging on Kanu’s neck and as such, the federal government has no option than to release him based on the Appeal Court verdict”.
“I learnt the government is contemplating an appeal at the Supreme Court against the Appeal court verdict but if they try it, the world will then know that they have a vested interest in Kanu’s continued detention and that will invoke United Nations sledgehammer against the Nigerian government. So, whichever way they go about it, the bottom line is to release him at last”.
In its own position, a Pan Igbo Sociocultural Organisation, Ime Obi Igbo enjoined President Muhammadu Buhari to quickly grab the opportunity offered to him by last Thursday’s judgement of the Court of Appeal which discharged Kanu and be Presidential enough by ensuring immediate compliance with the court verdict.
National Chairman of the group, Dr Mike Ikegulu who stated this yesterday in a press statement via SMS, said Buhari should equally dissuade the Attorney-General of the Federation, AG, Shehu Malami who they described as an overzealous person, from further distortions of the law, thereby bringing Nigeria to international disrepute and public ridicule.
Ime Obi Igbo expressed gratitude to God Almighty (Chukwu okike) for His Divine intervention in the suit against the IPOB leader, adding, “We felicitate with Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, people of good conscience and lovers of freedom on the appeal court judgement which has just discharged acquitted MNK”.
“The very basis of the appeal is the jurisdiction of Binta Nyako’s court to entertain the charges brought by the FGN”.
“This forum has always posited that MNK has no case to answer based on extant laws. The astute three-man panel of judges of the Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal had to abide by the law and not to pander to the executive in a unanimous judgement”, the statement added.
