There was a drama today when a Magistrate in Wuse Zone 2, Abuja, Shuaibu Usman, discharged the Director of Radio Biafra and Leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, on all counts of criminal conspiracy and ownership of an unlawful society brought against him by the federal government but was re-arrested outside the court premises by the operatives of the State Security Service.
The Magistrate had ruled: “The accused person is hereby discharged and the case struck out.”
But the Department of State Services (DSS), which had announced its withdrawal of the case at the lower court, re-arrested Kanu to be charged for the same offence at a higher court, which it said has jurisdiction to entertain charges bordering on terrorism.
The DSS had detained Kanu for at least 90 days despite an order of the magistrate court granting him bail in October.
After the lower court granted him bail, the DSS got an order of the federal high court, Abuja, to keep the leader of IPOB in detention.
However, his lawyer, Vincent Obetta, filed a counter application, seeking bail for the accused person.
Meanwhile, Justice of the Federal High Court, Abuja, Adeniyi Ademola, is expected to rule on the bail application tomorrow.
Since, the arrest and detention of Kanu by Nigeria’s secret Police, in Lagos, on Saturday, October 17, wave of protests, engineered by IPOB, as well as members of the Movement for the Actualization of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) had swept through the South-East and parts of the South-South, demanding an immediate and unconditional release of Kanu. [myad]
