*If Orji Kalu is saying the truth, Igbo governors, elites cannot be trusted; they must have aided Kanu’s escape game – Respondent
*Says Britain who seeks information must now re-explain its query to Nigeria after it knew his whereabouts
“…Yesterday you said Nnamdi Kanu is not terrorist in your country, today we saw why you said so.”
“One of his relations has spoken to me and explained everything because I wanted to see him and talk to him wherever he was and see how I could meet some Federal Government officials on his issue. I also wanted to see ways of talking to the President about him, and find common ground but his family told me that he has left the country, unless they are lying to me,” Orji Uzor Kalu said.
The riddle over the whereabouts of the leader of the Independent People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, has been solved by a former Governor of Abia State, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu, who revealed in an interview he granted the Punch newspaper that the man whose whereabouts is generating so much anxiety in the land has escaped to London.
The British government on Friday asked the Federal Government to reveal the whereabouts of the IPOB leader who is also a British citizen.
IPOB members through their spokesman had lied against the Nigerian military of keeping Kanu out of circulation by raiding his house in Abia and taken him away.
But former Governor of the IPOB leader’s state of Abia, Orji Uzor Kalu, denied that the IPOB leader was arrested by soldiers during a raid of his house.
”Kanu was not taken away by the military. Kanu went to Malaysia from where he travelled to the United Kingdom.
”Nnamdi Kanu is in London right now as we speak. He was not arrested by anybody. He left the country on his own.
“One of his relations has spoken to me and explained everything because I wanted to see him and talk to him wherever he was and see how I could meet some Federal Government officials on his issue. I also wanted to see ways of talking to the President about him, and find common ground but his family told me that he has left the country, unless they are lying to me.
“I believe, whether he had left the country or not, he is not with the military because I asked the Commander of the 14 Brigade, Brig.-Gen. A.K Ibrahim, who is a very fine and good soldier, well educated and dedicated, and he told me that they don’t know his whereabouts and I am sure, the Department of State Services has the same information. I also visited the commissioner of police and he said he didn’t know his whereabouts and that they are also looking for him,” Orji Uzor Kalu said.
He also spoke on the parents of the IPOB leader, saying he doesn’t know where they are now.
”I don’t know. I visited them (Kanu’s parents) in December last year and I was not impressed with the discussion I had with the father and the mother because I expected them to have acted better. Since then, I have not visited them. I feel that they have not impressed me because they ignored my advice to them to talk to their son on the need to stay at home and avoid public outings. I said his people can continue to carry their flags around but that they should not disturb anybody again. They have a right to express themselves but that such rights should be within the limits of our constitution. They have the right to carry Biafran flags but they should do so within the limits of the constitution. Once your activities are within the limits of the law, you are in order.
“You cannot carry Biafra flags and be stopping vehicles and smashing their windscreens. You cannot carry Biafra (flags) and be raping young girls, you also cannot carry Biafra (flags) and be assembling young men every day. These are people who have no job and after doing that, they will go and engage in kidnapping or they will go and do armed robbery while some will go and do other things to make money. Hunger is a very terrible thing. The traders in the market have warned them to stop the nonsense they are doing. Why should you be extorting money from people in the name of Biafra agitation? They are extorting money from people in the market against their will. If the federal and state governments continue to watch and allow all these things to continue, there will be chaos in the state. If Kanu had not proved stubborn but listened to advice and kept to the rules of the court, we won’t be where we are now,” he said.
The DEFENDER had recently reported that from some of its respondents, who dismissed the claim that Nnamdi Kanu started being missed since troops of the Nigerian Army “invaded” his home in Aba on September 14, saying it was a tactics to hoodwink the public to believe the falsehood that Kanu would not be available to face justice because military either killed or took him away.
In the meantime, a respondent has told the Nigerian government that effort should be made to probe how the IPOB leader escaped out of the country, if the claim by Orji Uzor Kalu was correct, with the presence of security in the South East.
The respondent however suspected foul play by the South East governments and political leaders, “to be the likely culprits in the escape gave and, if so, it means these Igbo people can never and must never be trusted by this government as they can compromise the security of even the President if he eventually tries to work closely with them in the name of peace. However, is this how the Igbo are going to get the presidency of this country? We all saw how they all backed Kanu and I am not in any doubt, if Orji Uzor Kalu is correct, that they are the ones who planned his escape game,” he said.
Another respondent said, “the British government should now re-explain to the world why it went to the extent of querying the government of a sovereign nation that Nigeria is, to explain the whereabouts of Nnamdi Kanu when, as it is now clear, it knew the whereabouts of the IPOB leader already. Yesterday you said Nnamdi Kanu is not terrorist in your country , but today we saw why you said so,” he said.
