Former President Muhammadu Buhari has defended the rendition of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, from Kenya to Nigeria in 2021 to face treason charges.
Buhari said in a new book written by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, that Nigeria did Nnamdi Kany a favour by bringing him back to the country to clear his name over numerous treasonable actions he had taken against the country.
It will be recalled that Kanu, who leads IPoB, had before his interception been shuttling between Nigeria and other countries, hurling unprintable abuses against the government and the leadership.
But in 2015, Kanu was apprehended by the security agencies and charged to court but he secured bail under very stringent conditions but disappeared from Nigeria.
However, on June 27, 2021, Kanu was intercepted by security agencies in a foreign country and brought back to Nigeria to face charges, a development that brought about the term “rendition’.
But while receiving a high-powered delegation of Igbo leaders on November 21, 2021, Buhari said he refused to interfere in Kanu’s case to enable him to clear himself in court rather than continue to give a terrible impression of Nigeria from outside.
Buhari said, “In the past six years, I have developed a system in which I don’t interfere with the judiciary. That was why in the case of Kanu, I said the best way was to subject him to the system. Let him make his case in court instead of giving a terrible impression of the country from the outside.
“I feel it is a favour to give him that opportunity. The government could have mobilized to eliminate him where he was, but we did not do that,” Buhari said in the book released in Abuja on Tuesday.
The Supreme Court has ordered that Kanu should face treason charges despite being discharged and acquitted earlier by the Court of Appeal.
Kanu is unhappy with the development but has no choice but to face trial by the court ruling early this month.
