FG announces re-arrest of IPOB Leader, Nnamdi Kanu

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According to the Nigerian government, a self acclaimed leader of IPOB group, Nnamdi Kanu, seeking Biafra freedom of southeastern region have been rearrested.


On Tuesday, the federal government  announced that the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra was intercepted by security agencies on Sunday June 27.


Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, who made the disclosure in a joint press briefing with heads of the department of security services and the police, said Nnamdi would be taking to court to continue with his trial.



Mr Malami said he’s being arraigned at the Federal High Court in Abuja, but refused to disclose where the separatist leader was arrested.


In 2019 a judge had ordered his arrest over his failure to attend hearings nearly two years after his release on bail.


Secessionist feeling has simmered in the southeast since the Biafra separatist rebellion of 1967-70 that tipped Nigeria into civil war and killed around 1 million people.


Since the Biafra call of freedom 1967-70, which propelled Nigeria into civil war and killed over 1 million people, secessionist sentiment has simmered throughout the southeast.


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Mr Kanu was arrested in October 2015 on charges of criminal conspiracy and belonging to an illegal society.


A military deployment to the region in 2017 to curb IPOB’s campaign stoked tensions, as did Kanu’s arrest.


In April of that year, he was released on medical bail, but has not been seen in Nigeria since an army assault on his home five months later.


Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court in Abuja said, "In the lack of any acceptable explanation for his absence, I hereby revoke his bail and direct that a bench warrant be issued for his arrest."