Bruce Fein, the United States lawyer of Nnamdi Kanu, leader
of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, has written to the British envoy in
Nigeria over the continued incarceration of the Biafra agitator.
Fein urged the British High Commissioner to Nigeria,
Catriona Laing, to push for the enforcement of the United Nations, U.N. Human
Rights Council Working Group on Arbitrary Commission on Kanu’s release.
The UN Working Group had called on the Federal Government to
immediately and unconditionally release Kanu.
In a document, the body also indicted both Nigeria and Kenya
for Kanu’s abduction and rendition.
Despite the call by the UN Working Group, Fein had written
to the U.K. envoy demanding it prevails on Nigeria to release the IPOB leader.
A copy of Fein’s letter was made available by Kanu’s Special
Counsel, Aloy Ejimakor.
In the letter, Fein faulted Britain’s silence over Kanu’s
continued incarceration.
The full text of the letter reads below.
RE: Immediate, Unconditional Release of U.K. citizen Nnamdi
Kanu, U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention Opinion No. 25/2022
Dear High Commissioner:
On July 20, 2022, the United Nations Human Rights Council
Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued a unanimous opinion addressing
United Kingdom citizen Nnamdi Kanu’s kidnapping, torture, extraordinary
rendition, and protracted detention without trial by Nigeria acting in
collusion with Kenya.
Among other things, the Working Group Opinion called upon
Nigeria “to take urgent action to ensure the immediate, unconditional release
of Mr. Kanu.” (Paragraph 107)
The Opinion cataloged the serial human rights violations of
Nigeria and Kenya regarding Mr. Kanu: “The deprivation of liberty…in
contravention of articles 2, 3, 7, 8, 9,10, 11, and 19 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and articles 2, 9, 13, 14, 16, 19, and 26 of the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights….” (Paragraph 105).
The villainous maltreatment of Nnamdi Kanu by Nigeria and
Kenya prompted the Working Group to refer his case to Special Rapporteur on
torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.
(Paragraph 109).
More than one month has elapsed since the unambiguous
Working Group Opinion. Nigeria has sneered at the Opinion as nothing but a
scrap of paper like Belgium neutrality scorned by Germany in World War I to
which Britain responded with war.
Once upon a time, the United Kingdom fiercely defended its
citizens against lawlessness by foreign nations. It fought the War of Jenkins
Ear in 1739 with Spain over an amputated ear of a British Captain by Spanish
coast guards in the West Indies.
Nnamdi Kanu is a British citizen. He has suffered far more
than Captain Jenkins at the hands of Nigeria and Kenya as corroborated and held
by the U.N. Working Group. Yet you have done nothing to secure Mr. Kanu’s
immediate and unconditional release as mandated by international law. Indeed,
you have idled like Nero fiddling while Rome burned. You cannot claim
ignorance. A copy of the crystal-clear Working Group Opinion is before you.
You are embarrassing the United Kingdom and the cause of
human rights. Think of the stupendous contrast. The United States is moving
heaven and earth to obtain the release of a United States basketball player
from Russia after she pled guilty to a drug violation. It has offered to trade
a notorious imprisoned arms trafficker Viktor Bout in exchange for Britney
Griner’s freedom.
Nnamdi Kanu, unlike Mr. Griner, is innocent. He has not been
convicted of any crime. Indeed, he is a victim of multiple crimes perpetrated
by Nigerian and Kenyan authorities. Yet you and your superiors continue to
permit Mr. Kanu to suffer in a Nigerian dungeon in flagrant violation of
international law.
Have you no sense of decency? Has Great Britain sold its
soul for a mess of pottage? Is the United Kingdom the land of Magna Carta and
the immortal Winston Churchill with his dauntless denunciations of Nazi
Germany?
Russia’s attack on Ukraine is a tea party compared with
Nigeria’s ongoing genocide of Biafrans—the Holocaust sans the gas chambers. It
is not acceptable under law or God that Great Britain would declaim against the
former and ignore the latter. Your silence is making Great Britain’s presidency
of the United Nations Security Council a joke.
I regret the resort to language outside the customary
euphemisms of diplomacy. But justice for Nnamdi Kanu and 70-80 million Biafrans
is too important to be left to ambiguous clues or semaphores.
I would respectfully request that you inform me promptly of
the steps you have taken or contemplate taking to secure Nigeria’s compliance
with the Working Group Opinion calling for Nnamdi Kanu’s immediate,
unconditional release and reparations. Nothing would gratify me more than for
you to earn an honored chapter in the annals of human rights and international
law
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