All is not well within the camp of the South-East Senate Caucus, as strong indications have emerged that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), maybe plotting to move against its key members, over their roles in the release of the the leader of Indigenous People Of Biafra (IPOB), Mr. Nnamdi Kanu.

It was gathered that some key members of the caucus, met at the private residence of the Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu in Abuja on Tuesday night, where they extensively discussed the alleged looming political persecution.

At the Tuesday meeting, IPOB leader, Mr. Kanu, was in attendance. Also in attendance were Ekweremadu, Senators Enyinnaya Abaribe, Theodore Orji, Andy Uba, Hope Uzodinma, Gilbert Nnaji, Sam Egwu and Sonni Ugbuoji.

It was learnt that prior to the release of Kanu, the caucus met at Ekweremadu’s residence, where the lawmakers reportedly made huge donations towards release of Kanu. The lawmakers, in one of the meetings, also named Senator Abaribe to serve as one of the the sureties to Kanu.

However, it was also learnt that the Presidency is unhappy, over the roles played by the Senators.

Worried that he may be the first casualty, Ekweremadu, raised the alarm on the floor of the Senate on Wednesday, of plans by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), to invade his country home in Enugu and other apartments, under the guise of searching for looted funds.

Ekweremadu who read a letter, reportedly written to him by an unnamed Nigerian, informing him of EFCC’s plans, said the anti-graft agency is also planning to ‘plant’ ammunition in his apartment during the raid.

He said the move is to force him out of office and give the impression that he is a corrupt politician, unfit to hold any public office.

He said plans have also been perfected by the EFCC to use groups to protest in major cities across the country, calling for his resignation and prosecution.

Reading the letter, Ekweremadu said: “Distinguished Senator, there is a grand plan from the cabals in the presidency, using the EFCC as an anti-graft agency to indict and remove you from office. These cabals in the presidency have mandated the EFCC chairman to carry out this evil operation within two weeks.

“On the 6th of May Saturday, 2017. That is between Saturday night and Sunday morning, the EFCC alongside with local and international media both print and TV will raid an apartment under the guise of whistle blowing policy of the Federal Government.

“They will come with a search warrant already obtained from a Magistrate Court to search an apartment allegedly to be one of your guest houses in Enugu, the state capital or any available apartment in your senatorial district that will serve this evil purpose.

“EFCC is claiming to have received a tip off from a whistle blower in your state alerting the agency of a large huge amount of money of different currencies in the said apartment belonging to you, senator Ike Ekweremadu, the Deputy Senate President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. They will say that the money is a proceed which is likely to be illegally obtained and acquired, which constitute abuse of office and corruption.”

Reading the letter further, Ekweremadu noted: “A huge amount of money with different currencies, such as British pound sterling, US dollars, Indian rupee, South Africa rand, and Malaysian Ringgit will be ‘discovered’.

“Documents alleging to be yours, such as 2015 campaign memo and logistic, a list of names of chairmen of local wards of party men and women that benefited from your empowerment programme and other cooked up documents bearing your signature.

“A single photo portrait of yours will be placed in the sitting room. Ammunition such as AK 47, two pump action gun with unused gun bullet will be found.

“You will be invited  by the anti-graft agency for questioning and interrogation to shed more light on the said apartment which will lead to your arrest and detention, pending the outcome of the investigation.

“While you are still in detention, sponsored nongovernmental organiaations will be protesting round the nation and in cities like Lagos, Enugu, Anambra, Abuja, etc. Sponsored youth in your senatorial district will come to Abuja protesting in the National Assembly gate with petitions submitted  to the Senate President and one to the Clark to the National Assembly recalling you.

“While protest is ongoing according to their evil plan, the EFCC after detaining  you for at least three weeks, you will be charge to court since section 308 immunity clause does not apply to your office.

“The cabals in the presidency are planning to indict you and to kill your political ambition so that you can no longer stand for any future elections. They also want to show to the international community and Nigerian people that you are a corrupt politician.

“I sympathised with you and God will continue to use people like us to destabilize their evil plan against you. I wish you all the best in your political journey.‎”

Sources in the Deputy Senate President’s office, told Daily Sun that the move against their principal, may not also be unconnected to Ekweremadu’s recent calls on the Federal Government to raise the national minimum wage from N18,000 to N50,000.

source: Daily Sun

Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), has just been granted bail by an Abuja Federal High Court presided over by Justice Binta Nyako. One of the highlights of the bail conditions outlined by the court was that Kanu should produce three sureties one of whom must be a highly respected Jewish leader. Justice Nyako said she had to attach this condition since Kanu claims Judaism as his religion. The bail conditions also require that a senior Igbo in the rank of a senator will have to stand surety for Kanu. And when he leaves the confines of the prison walls where he is at the moment, Kanu must not grant interviews or hold rallies. He must also not be seen in the company of more than 10 persons.

Those who are interested in human rights issues are already up in arms against Nyako and her bail conditions. They have reminded her of the fact that the court is the least qualified institution to curtail or abridge the fundamental human rights of any individual. As a free citizen, Kanu cannot be prevented from associating with people. He has the freedom to speak freely. To seek to gag him as the court has pronounced is to make mockery of the fundamental reason for which Kanu is standing trial. They are reminding Nyako, in case she has forgotten, that Kanu is agitating partly because the Nigerian state has been indulging in secrecy over the Biafran affair. The government outlawed the teaching of any aspect of the Nigerian history that touches on Biafra. The idea was to shield the younger generation of Nigerians from the bitter experience of the war. But that ploy has since failed. Post-Biafra children have been told the story of the war by their parents. They have absorbed the story and they are asking why. They want the Nigerian state to release the ghost of Biafra from the cage and confront it. Seeking to bury it compulsively is one of the reasons Kanu is agitating. To clip his wings in that regard with the stringent bail conditions is, therefore, unacceptable. That is what human rights advocates, IPOB members and other interested parties and concerned Nigerians are saying. They want Kanu to be released unconditionally.

Beyond the arguments raised so far against the bail conditions, what interests me in the matter is its separatist undertone. The bail conditions read like a separatist manuscript. Through them, Justice Nyako is extending the frontiers of sectionalism and sectarianism. Whereas she is expected to bring a broad and nationalist outlook to bear on the issue at stake, Nyako has unwittingly been drawn into the narrow confines of  separatism, the very reason that is making the Federal Government to be ill at ease with  Kanu.

Kanu is a product of separatism. He professes Biafra. Justice Nyako has also told us that he professes Judaism. It was clearly on these grounds that Justice Nyako had to insist that Kanu’s sureties must include a senator of Igbo extraction and a respected Jewish leader. These conditions, in themselves, are narrow and discriminatory. They sound like another piece of separatism, this time being propagated by the court. By her pronouncement, the Judge is saying that the charges for which Kanu and others are standing trial are not normal. She is insisting on boxing Kanu into his own corner. This is very reductionist, to say the least. If Nyako saw the case before her as a normal human situation in which people can freely come up to propagate an agenda that they believe in, she would not have reduced the Kanu affair to the level where it is only an Igbo senator that can stand surety for him. Any other known Nigerian could also have qualified to play that role, including Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State, who has openly identified with the cause that Kanu is fighting for.

If we move away from Justice Binta’s compulsive Igbo attachment to the Kanu bail condition, we will be confronted with even a bigger sectional interpretation of what Kanu stands for. According to Justice Nyako, Kanu claims to be a judaist. For that reason, he must also bring a judaist to come and stand surety for him. This is clearly strange and not in line with the way our courts have been operating. I do not know of any situation where people standing trial in court can only be suretied by people who are of the same faith with them. This is a new dimension to criminal justice administration in the country.

But then, when we dissect the issue properly, we cannot but conclude that Justice Nyako is being driven by the much talked about relationship between the Igbo of Nigeria and the Jews of Israel. Kanu himself may have taken to Judaism apparently to drive this point home. Judaism, an ancient, monotheistic Abrahamic religion, is practised by most Jews. As an Igbo who feels that there is substance in the Igbo-Jewish relationship, Kanu may have decided to identify with the religion of the Jews. To this extent, Kanu is an Igbo Jew. He is a member of the Igbo people of Nigeria, who practise a form of Judaism even though they are not taken as Jews by the mainstream Jewish community. Jewish Igbo believe that they are descendants of the lost tribe of Israel who settled in Nigeria.

But the bigger point here is that there is a link between the Biafran cause, which Kanu is fighting for and the experience of the Jews in the hands of their persecutors. The Holocaust readily comes to mind here. When we talk about the Holocaust, we are talking about the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million European Jews by the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler and its World War II collaborators. The Holocaust is the centrepiece of the Jewish history just as the Biafran War in which about three million Igbo lost their lives will remain the most  telling moment of Igbo experience  in their relationship with other Nigerians. Kanu and his fellow agitators must be taking solace in the experience of the Jews. The inspiration to be derived from it is that if the Jews, who went through the horrors of the Holocaust can stand tall today in world affairs, the Igbo, who were subjected to state-sponsored genocidal gambit  during  the Biafran War, can, with determination, rise from the ashes of persecution and hold their own.

Beyond Kanu and his group, the Igbo-Jewish connection resonates with freshness and appeal. There are claims that the Igbo are the Jews of West Africa. In furtherance of this argument, certain Jewish characteristics, especially their migrant nature, are being attributed to the Igbo. We are told that Jewish scientists were in Nnewi, Anambra State, recently to conduct Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) tests on interested citizens to determine the claims about the Igbo-Jewish relationship.

But all of this are mere asides in the issue at stake. The bail granted Kanu, in spite of its stringency, may excite some people. However, after that, we must pause to see what government does with the court order. Will government, this time, respect the order of the court and release Kanu from detention? This is the next thing to watch out for, especially if we recall that this is the third time that he is being granted bail by the courts. Government did not abide by the previous court orders. What should we expect this time?

The Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose and the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, yesterday, revealed plans to raise support fund for the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu.

The governor had on Tuesday stormed an Abuja Federal High Court in solidarity with Kanu.

President Muhammadu Buhari has sent a congratulatory message to Prince Tony Momoh – Momoh, a veteran journalist and former minister of information and culture, will be 78 on Thursday, April 27 – His name has also been mentioned as one of the likely replacement for Babachir David Lawal President Muhammadu Buhari has sent a congratulatory message to Prince Tony Momoh. Momoh, a veteran journalist and former minister of information and culture, will be 78 on Thursday, April 27.