The Inspector-General of Police, Usman Baba, and the Department of State Services (DSS) worked with the Nigerian Intelligence Agency and the International Police for months to ensure the arrest of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, to look good in President Muhammadu Buhari’s eyes.
Military sources told SaharaReporters that the plan to arrest Kanu started in March 2021 as the attacks on police stations and killing of security personnel soared in the South-East and South-South states, with the IGP promising the President that Kanu would be arrested.
Baba was appointed by Buhari in February 2021, three months after Kanu had established the IPOB’s militant arm – the Eastern Security Network (ESN).
Sources told SaharaReporters that Kanu’s arrest was at the top of the agenda in the meeting President Buhari held with the IGP and service chiefs on the South-East situation in the first week of May.
“The IGP was asked to form a special tactical squad in the South-East. He was told he would be assisted by the Department of State Services and with the deployment of military personnel even from the North-East to the South-East and South-South to make arrests. The IGP and the military were asked to locate the ESN and IPOB camps and go after key commanders to extract top information,” one of the sources said.
“It was around that time that the security operatives recovered several mobile communication gadgets from both dead and arrested ESN commanders; they extracted information from them which was all in the build-up to arrest Kanu. They went after IPOB’s top lawyer, Ejiofor, in the first week of June, as part of the plan to extract top information about Kanu. It has always been about arresting Kanu all along,” another source added.
“You recall that the President commanded the security chiefs and IGP to adopt certain security measures in the South-East and the South-South zones. These were some of the measures. The IGP was to take the lead and the president directed that he should be given support by all other security arms,” another source volunteered.
“The Twitter ban was also to bring a large gap between Kanu, mostly active on Twitter, and his vast followers in Nigeria, especially in the South-East.”
SaharaReporters had on Tuesday reported that the IPOB leader was not picked up in the United Kingdom but at a location in Africa.
“He was not arrested in London or anywhere in the United Kingdom. Diplomats confirmed that Kanu was picked up somewhere in Africa. The family and IPOB are very unhappy. Apparently, they have known about the trailing an arrest for about some time,” a top source had stated.
SaharaReporters had earlier reported that the family of Nnamdi Kanu asked the Federal Government not to manhandle their son, who is currently in the custody of the Department of State Services (DSS).
Speaking in Umuahia, the Abia state capital, Nnamdi Kanu’s younger brother, Emmanuel Kanu had said the IPOB leader stood on the path of truth and committed no crime to deserve any persecution.
According to him, Nnamdi was only asking for the freedom of Biafrans which is their fundamental human right hence, his rights should be respected.
He said the whole world is watching how the Nigerian Government will handle Kanu.
