Captured Kanu

Nigeria: Arrest of IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu sparks diplomatic row with UK

By Chinedu Asadu

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Posted on July 9, 2021 16:23

FILE PHOTO: Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader Nnamdi Kanu is seen at the Federal high court Abuja, Nigeria © Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader Nnamdi Kanu is seen at the federal high court in Abuja, Nigeria 20 January 2016 REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde
Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader Nnamdi Kanu is seen at the federal high court in Abuja, Nigeria 20 January 2016 REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde

For many in Nigeria, there’s a feeling of déjà vu about the capture of Biafran separatist leader Nnamdi Kanu by President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration. That’s because in 1984, then as a military head of state, Buhari engaged cross-border security operatives in a failed attempt to kidnap and smuggle home from London a Nigerian fugitive and former minister, Umaru Dikko.

Now, as a democratically elected president, his government’s decision to “intercept” Kanu, who is also a British national, has sparked a diplomatic row between Nigeria and the UK.

More than a week after Kanu, who leads the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), was “intercepted” – as the Nigerian officials put it – on 29 June, the government has not yet provided details of the operation.

No one knows where or how he was picked up before being taken to Nigeria. Kanu’s family say that he was in Kenya and that the Nigerian government conducted an illegal extraordinary rendition in order to take the separatist leader into custody.

An attempt by the British High Commission in Abuja to get official word about the arrest has hit a brick wall.

Arrest or abduction?

“I think what happened to Kanu is more of an abduction and not an arrest,” says Bola Akinterinwa, a former director-general of the

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