Rights violation: Nnamdi Kanu petitions NHRC, demands probe of top govt officials

 Rights violation: Nnamdi Kanu petitions NHRC, demands probe of top govt officials Embattled leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of B...

 Rights violation: Nnamdi Kanu petitions NHRC, demands probe of top govt officials

Embattled leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, has petitioned the National Human Rights Commission over the violation of his fundamental rights.

The petition filed by the IPOB leader’s Special Counsel, Aloy Ejimakor, on March 20, 2022, and received the following day was addressed to the NHRC Executive Secretary, Anthony Ojukwu.

In the petition obtained by The PUNCH, Kanu urged the Commission to probe top government officials involved in his “abduction” from Kenya.

The petition was titled, ‘Re: Submission Of Complaint Of Violations Of The Human Rights Of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu And Request For Investigation And Appropriate Recommendations’.

It partly read, “On June 19, 2021, our Client drove himself to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Nairobi, Kenya on a personal errand. As soon as he pulled to a stop at the parking lot and alighted from his vehicle, about twenty well-armed persons violently accosted and abducted him, handcuffed him, blindfolded him, bundled him into a vehicle and sped away.

“His abductors took him to a secret private location (not a police station) somewhere in Nairobi, Kenya and chained him to the floor.

“While chained to the floor, his abductors took turns beating and torturing him to the point that he fainted several times and was intermittently revived when they poured cold water on him.

“The inhuman treatment, cruelty and degradation to which the abductors subjected our Client and the external and internal injuries he sustained therefrom coupled with his pre-existing poor health made him to languish in dread, fear and terror that he was going to die in captivity and his body disappeared.

“His anguished entreaties to his abductors to get him some medication for his hypertension, heart condition and physical injuries were inhumanely refused and his pleas to be taken before a Court or even an official police or other law enforcement facility or allowed a phone call were flatly refused.

“Throughout the 8-day duration of the captivity and torture of our Client, his torturers were in constant telephone conversations with, and taking directives and instructions from the Nigerian High Commissioner to Kenya and other Nigerian officials.

“On the eight day, his abductors brought him out of the house, put him in a car, drove him straight to the tarmac of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, where they evaded Kenyan immigration and forcibly bundled him into a private jet that departed the airport before noon on June 27, 2021 and arrived Abuja, Nigeria in the early evening of same day.

“On arrival in Nigeria, our Client was taken to and detained at the headquarters of the Nigerian Intelligence Agency (NIA) in Abuja. He spent the first night at the NIA detention facility, sleeping on the floor with very bright electric bulbs deliberately left on throughout the night, thus causing him extreme bodily heat, sleep deprivation and mental anguish.

“Our Client states that, from 29th June 2021 to date, he has been subjected to solitary confinement, lasting for 23 hours each day at the Headquarters of the State Security Services in Abuja.

“In view of the forgoing, we hereby make the following Prayers:

“That, consistent with the mandates of the National Human Rights Commission Act, the Commission take prompt measures to initiate investigation of this Complaint.

“(b) That, the Commission recommend to the Federal Government that it is a violation of the law and therefore of the rights of our Client for him to be subjected to any more Charges beyond the 4-count Charges facing our Client as of the date of his said ‘interception and extradition’.

“Monitor and investigate all alleged cases of human rights violation in Nigeria and make appropriate recommendation to the President for the prosecution and such other actions as it may deem expedient in each circumstance (s) assist victims of human rights violation and seek appropriate redress and remedies on their behalf.

“That the Commission recommend to the Federal Government to take prompt measures to initiate the prosecution of all persons who were complicit in the torture of our Client, in line with the provisions of the Anti-Torture Act 2017 and other pertinent laws.”

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