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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