Pro-Biafra activist Nnamdi Kanu (centre) attending his trial in the Nigerian capital of Abuja, February 9. Kanu has been detained in Nigeria since October 2015.PIUS UTOMI EKPEI/AFP/Getty Images |
The wife of imprisoned
pro-Biafra activist Nnamdi Kanu has accused the British government of “evading
responsibility” for ensuring her husband’s human rights are not violated.
In an exclusive
interview with Newsweek, Uchechi Okwu-Kanu, who gave birth to the couple’s
first child together in January, says that the stress of her husband’s
detention in Nigeria—which began almost five months ago in October 2015—meant
that she almost miscarried.
Kanu, a
British-Nigerian dual national, is the leader of the Indigenous People of
Biafra (IPOB), a global campaign group calling for independence for the region
formerly known as the Republic of Biafra, currently southeast Nigeria. Biafra
existed as an independent republic between 1967 and 1970 and was populated
mainly by members of the Igbo ethnic group before it was re-amalgamated into
Nigeria.
Kanu was arrested in
Lagos by the Nigerian State Security Service (DSS) in October 2015 on charges
including criminal conspiracy and belonging to unlawful society. Since then, he
has twice been granted bail by Nigerian courts but remains in detention.
Nnamdi Kanu and his wife Uchechi Okwu-Kanu in 2014. Okwu-Kanu says her husband's detention almost resulted in her miscarrying their child. |
The Nigerian government
filed fresh charges against him in December 2015 of treasonable felony—which
carries a maximum life sentence in Nigeria—accusing Kanu of attempting to
overthrow Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari by broadcasting secessionist
material on Radio Biafra, an underground media outlet of which Kanu is the
director. His trial is due to begin in the Nigerian capital Abuja on Monday.
Okwu-Kanu says that her
husband’s human rights have been violated by the Nigerian government and
security forces, who have kept him in detention despite the Federal High Court
in Abuja ordering in December 2015 for the pro-Biafra activist to be granted
unconditional bail.
“It is for the British
government to get involved, to make sure that this person’s human rights are
being respected and they haven’t done that. They’ve been to see my husband but
that is not where it ends,” says Okwu-Kanu, who married Kanu in 2009 and lives
with her husband, step-son and son in London.
Labour MP Angela
Rayner, the U.K.’s Shadow Minister for Work and Pensions, tells Newsweek that
she has received multiple allegations of human rights abuses against Kanu and
other pro-Biafra protesters in Nigeria from her constituents and had raised the
issue with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).
Amnesty International
also tells Newsweek that it is investigating allegations of human rights abuses
of pro-Biafra protesters, including killings and arbitrary arrests, in at least
four locations in Nigeria, and that it will look into claims that Kanu had been
tortured in detention.
“His human rights have
been violated and international human rights bodies should be all over the
place because he is also human,” says Okwu-Kanu. “From my perspective, they
[the British government] are evading some responsibility. They should be doing
more, they should visit him more... It’s obvious and apparent that the Nigerian
government and the DSS is not obeying the law.”
An FCO spokesperson
tells Newsweek: “The U.K. takes all accusations of human rights abuses
seriously. We have provided assistance to Kanu since his arrest in October
2015, including visiting him regularly in prison and attending court
appearances. In each of our visits to Kanu he has told us he is in good health
and that he has access to both a doctor and his lawyer.” The FCO spokesperson
also says that the U.K. “fully supports the territorial integrity of Nigeria.”
During the early months
of his detention, Okwu-Kanu says she was unable to contact her husband and
wasn’t sure if he was alive or dead. The stress prompted the heavily-pregnant
Okwu-Kanu to go into early contractions in November 2015. “I managed to get an ambulance
and got the whole thing under control. I was kept under care, watched for two
or three days before I left the hospital,” she says. The couple’s son—whom
Okwu-Kanu prefers not to name for reasons of privacy—was delivered safely on
January 4.
Okwu-Kanu says that she
last heard from her husband earlier in February and was reassured that he was
in good health. She says that the support of members of IPOB—who view her
husband as a divinely-ordained leader sent to bring about the actualization of
Biafra—has helped her through Kanu’s absence. “The fact that they’re all behind
me has strengthened me. Knowing that people are behind my husband, it gives me
strength every day. That’s probably the reason why I’m still alive, the fact
that he is loved by the people,” she says.
The declaration of
Biafran independence by former Nigerian military officer Odumegwu Ojukwu in
1967 sparked a three-year civil war between the Biafran and Nigerian forces.
More than one million people died, many due to starvation after the Nigerian
forces blockaded Biafra’s borders.
Despite having spent
her entire married life in the U.K., Okwu-Kanu says she and her family would
move to Biafra in an instant were it to be re-established. “Biafraland is a
blessed land,” she says. “We have everything in season.”
The Nigerian government
has declined repeated requests by Newsweek for comment on Kanu’s detention. In
December 2015, Buhari warned that the British-Nigerian activist posed a flight
risk.
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