The Mazi Nnamdi Kanu Defence Consortium, a group of attorneys advocating for the freedom of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader, has contested the assertions made by Nigeria’s Defence Headquarters regarding the reduction of insecurity in the South-East since the imprisonment of the activist.
Major General Michael Onoja, the Director of Defence Media Operations, stated this in a recent announcement, claiming that Kanu’s imprisonment and increased military actions have led to greater stability in the area.
In response on Friday, Onyedikachi Ifedi, Esq, representing the Mazi Nnamdi Kanu Defence Consortium, argued that it is not Kanu and IPOB who are responsible for the insecurity that has affected the South-East in recent years, but rather the Nigerian government itself.
In a statement titled, ‘The Nigerian military cannot whitewash history – their hands are too soaked in blood’, Ifedi characterized Onoja’s statements as an effort to distort historical facts.
“Major General Michael Onoja’s recent assertion that ‘security has improved’ in the South-East due to intensified military operations and the imprisonment of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is not just incorrect. It is a cynical distortion of history — and an affront to every life lost due to state violence in Nigeria.
“This narrative crumbles under one undeniable fact – The Nigerian state is responsible for the crisis it now claims to be combating.
“Long before the term ‘separatist’ was ever mentioned, the Nigerian military had already made peaceful, unarmed citizens into targets,” the statement continued.
The Kanu defence team highlighted the ‘Nkpor massacre’, where peaceful mourners and protesters were shot; the killing of unarmed youths at National High School, Aba; the bloodshed that followed a Trump solidarity rally in Port Harcourt, and the raid on Kanu’s residence in Umuahia, where 28 individuals were reportedly killed, to support their assertion that the Nigerian government is behind the violence and insecurity in the region.