The Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) has kicked against plots to compel President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to release the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu.
OsunDailyNG reports that South-East governors, leaders, groups, and stakeholders have consistently called on President Tinubu to release the pro-Biafra activist, who has been in detention of the Department of State Services (DSS) since 2021 after his extraordinary rendition from Kenya.
In a statement on Saturday, CNG spokesperson, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, asked Tinubu to resist the Igbo campaign of blackmail using Nnamdi Kanu’s release as a precondition for sustainable peace in the land.
While describing calls for the pro-Biafra activist release as unpatriotic, the group urged Tinubu not to fall for the antics of IPOB, insisting that the leader of IPOB, Kanu, must face trial.
Suleiman called on the Federal Government to intensify ongoing action to disband all militias and armed groups in the South East and other parts of Nigeria.
According to him, no group should have the capacity to challenge the state in its prerogative to maintain law and order and protect citizens’ lives and properties.
“How would the relations of the over 500 personnel of the various paramilitary organs who were indiscriminately attacked and killed while on duty posts at various checkpoints as a result of the incitement by Kanu feel?
“As the Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, what words would Mr. President use to encourage and retain other officers and men of the various forces if the man who incited the killing of their colleagues were to be released without even a trial?
“What would be the status of the families and community members of those killed, dispossessed, or displaced as a result of the hate campaigns and propaganda conducted by Nnamdi Kanu and sponsored by his regional and ethnic collaborators?” He questioned.
The CNG mouthpiece claimed that the renewed determination to secure the release of Kanu without trial “is part of a wider agenda of destruction and collective mayhem relentlessly pursued by the Igbo perpetrators of violence, fervently hoping it will engulf the entire country and bring about another civil war, mass killings and suffering of innocent people.
“Convinced that the resurgence of violent separatist agitations by IPOB and its ilk in the South East represents a much wider conspiracy for the violent determination of the Igbo to see through the destabilization of Nigeria cannot be avoided or deferred any longer without terrible consequences.”
