President Muhammadu Buhari has said that he would not interfere in the trial of the leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.
President Buhari made the remark during a recorded interview aired on Channels TV on Wednesday evening.
The position of President Buhari limited the possibility of a political solution in the case.
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According to the president, “Nigerians know that I don’t interfere with the judiciary, let him be listened to. But those who are saying that he should be released, no, we cannot release him.”
Kanu is currently facing trial for terrorism and treason in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city.
Kanu was first arrested in October 2015 but was released on bail and fled the country in 2017.
He was arrested the second time abroad last June and brought back to Nigeria to face trial.
IPOB, which he leads, is pushing for a separate state for the ethnic Igbo people in the south East.
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A delegation of traditional rulers from the Southeast last November had urged the president to consider releasing the IPOB leader.
He told the monarchs the same thing he said during the channels interview.
He, however, promised to consider it.
“In the last six years, since I became president, nobody would say I have confronted or interfered in the work of the Judiciary,” President Buhari told the Igbo monarchs.