By PAMELA EBOH, Awka

The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB has described the arrest of Prof. Martin Aghaji, the cardio-thoracic surgeon and personal physician of its leader, Nnamdi Kanu, in the dead of night for simply telling the truth about his health condition as a national disgrace and a direct assault on the medical profession.

It cited the arrest as a desperate cover-up of unprecedented medical and legal fraud in the persecution of Kanu.

The group however expressed relief that the preeminent cardio-thoracic surgeon has been released from the DSS detention in Lagos

According to a press statement by the group’s media and Publicity Secretary, Emma Powerful, on Monday, Agbaji was picked from his Enugu residence during a midnight raid on Friday, July 3, 2026 and dragged to Abuja and then Lagos, before being dumped after intense pressure from lawyers and the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA).

It described what Prof Aghaji endured as the daily reality for every legal and medical practitioner associated with the high-profile case, saying that they face death threats, illegal detentions, blackmail, fear of disbarment, and the weaponisation of family members of judges as bait to achieve a predetermined outcome.

The statement partly reads, “It is particularly telling that as soon as Justice Binta Nyako recused herself at the insistence of Onyendu Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the EFCC case against her husband and son, a case that had lingered for years — was promptly dropped.

“By demanding her recusal, our leader removed the leverage that could have been used to pressure her into delivering a particular verdict. There was nothing left to dangle.

“At the heart of this entire charade lies a medical and legal fraud unprecedented in the history of jurisprudence.

“On the 26th day of October 2025, Justice James Omotosho ordered the President of the Nigerian Medical Association to constitute a team of medical experts to examine a sick defendant — Onyendu Mazi Nnamdi Kanu — and submit a report to the court.

“No medical examination ever took place. Dr. Martin Aghaji, the personal physician of our leader, was deliberately excluded and never informed. No team of experts was ever constituted by the NMA President. Yet certain persons purporting to act on behalf of the NMA President issued a report dated 23rd October 2025 — three days before Justice Omotosho even gave the order for the examination to be conducted.

“This is not a mistake. This is forgery. This is fraud on the court. This is the killer question sitting at the very heart of the appeal now pending before the Court of Appeal. Because this question is unanswerable and would in all probability result in the setting aside of the conviction, the Nigerian authorities resorted to their familiar tactics of harassment, intimidation and abduction to compel Professor Aghaji to alter or suppress his independent medical opinion on the true state of health of our leader.

“Contrast this with the conduct of Justice James Omotosho himself. Faced with the same choice — to do the right thing or to do the bidding of power, he chose to do something alien to criminal law anywhere in the common law world: he convicted and sentenced a defendant in the absence of any subsisting and extant written law.

“Onyendu Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has become the first person in the entire history of common-law criminal jurisprudence to be convicted and sentenced under a repealed law. This is not justice. This is a judicial abomination.”

IPOB observed that without the direct and sustained intervention of the international community, the appeal pending at the Court of Appeal will see judges subjected to the same incalculable pressure that was brought to bear on Professor Aghaji.

It noted that the pattern is consistent, saying that anyone who refuses to play ball is neutralised — through abduction, blackmail, or the dangling of family cases.

IPOB however called on the general public, all human rights organisations, the United States, Israel, the United Kingdom, and every serious observer of the case to go through the processes already filed by both parties at the Court of Appeal. Read the records, examine the timelines. Interrogate the so-called medical report of 23rd October 2025 against the court order of 26th October 2025 and scrutinise how a conviction was secured under a repealed law while an independent medical report exposing the fraud was suppressed through state terror.

It added: “This case is not merely historic. It has the potential to mark the beginning of the end of the Nigerian judiciary as we know it.

“When midnight raids on eminent surgeons, forged medical reports, convictions under non-existent laws, and the blackmail of judicial families become the new normal, the judiciary has ceased to be an institution of justice. It has become an extension of the security apparatus.

“IPOB will not be silenced. We will not be intimidated. And we will not rest until every fraudulent process in this case is exposed and Onyendu Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is unconditionally released. The world is watching. History is recording.”

IPOB further thanked Nnamdi Kanu’s lawyers for their prompt and courageous intervention in raising the alarm, and particularly commended the Nigeria Medica Association, NMA for its swift and principled stand, noting that their intervention forced the DSS to blink.

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