The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has said that recent remarks by Islamic cleric, Sheikh Sani Yahaya Jingir, have confirmed warnings repeatedly issued by its leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, over the last decade.

In a press statement released yesterday and signed by IPOB spokesperson, Emma Powerful, the group described Jingir’s declaration that “Nigeria is a Muslim country,” and that Christians are “infidels” who should leave, as “the open confirmation of the very agenda Onyendu Mazi Nnamdi Kanu had warned against.”

The group tied Jingir’s comments directly to the continued detention of Kanu, arguing that his prosecution is connected to the broader issue of religious identity in Nigeria.

The statement noted that Kanu was “abducted in Kenya and extraordinarily renditioned to Nigeria” and has remained in custody despite a Court of Appeal judgment on October 13, 2022 discharging him. IPOB alleged that a “civil stay of execution was used to negate a criminal discharge,” and that Kanu was later “re-arraigned, denied fair hearing, convicted under non-existent or repealed statutes, sentenced to life, and dumped in Sokoto.”

IPOB said Kanu is “no terrorist” but “a whistleblower who exposed an organised design to alter Nigeria’s religious character.”

The group also claimed that the United States Congress and the Israeli Knesset have been “fully informed of the Jihadist plans to Islamise non-Muslim populations in Nigeria, and of the details of the persecution and prosecution of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu,” including the circumstances of his rendition, trial, and transfer.

The statement devoted significant attention to legal arguments. IPOB contended that “no citizen can be tried and convicted unless the offence and penalty are prescribed by a written law in force,” and alleged that Kanu was convicted on the basis of laws that “do not exist” or “have been repealed.”

It described the use of a civil stay against a criminal discharge as “unprecedented judicial sleight” and said the process “threatens every person who expects the protection of written law.”

IPOB asked the Nigerian government to clarify the country’s constitutional status.

“Is Nigeria a secular constitutional republic belonging equally to Christians, Muslims, traditional worshippers and citizens of no religion, or is it a religious fiefdom in which one constituency may claim ownership of the country and tell everybody else to vacate?” the statement asked.

The group said Jingir’s declaration “provides further public evidence requiring international scrutiny of the danger” Kanu had warned about. It also referenced “the relentless advance of jihadist groups and Fulani bandits into indigenous southern territories,” stating that this “will never be accepted as the destiny of our people.”

IPOB added that the persecution of Kanu is “inseparable from the jihadist violence ravaging Nigeria and the Islamisation agenda.”

“They called him a terrorist. They called him an extremist. They imprisoned the messenger. Now the message speaks for itself,” the statement read.

“The warnings once ridiculed are being vindicated by events and by the increasingly brazen declarations now being made in public.”

IPOB concluded that “truth cannot be extraordinarily rendered” and “history cannot be sentenced to life in Sokoto.” (The Sun)