Dare Babalola
Former Senate Minority Leader, Enyinnaya Abaribe, has criticised the Federal Government over Nnamdi Kanu’s life sentence, saying it’s no surprise given earlier signals.
In a statement issued in Abuja by his media adviser, Uchenna Awom, the Abia South senator questioned the justice system, asking if it’s only the South-East that commits crimes.
The lawmaker said the “preconceived plot” to jail Kanu for life did not come to the Igbo nation or “other right-thinking Nigerians” as a shock.
Abaribe noted that Federal Government’s refusal to grant Kanu amnesty, unlike militants in South-South and terror suspects in North, made the life sentence predictable. He questioned the disparity, asking if it’s only the South-East that commits crimes.
“At the time the Federal Government refused to factor in pleadings to extend the amnesty to Nnamdi Kanu as done to some others, we knew that today’s outcome was imminent,” he said.
Describing the treatment of Kanu as a reflection of unequal justice, the senator said, “Is it not an irony that negotiations and peace deals with rampaging terrorists in the North-East, North-West were gleefully initiated just like the amnesty to ex-militants in the South-South? This is to say that justice in Nigeria is not for the South-East.”
Abaribe urged calm, noting that the matter now rests “squarely on the desk of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.”
“So we are not surprised; our people can only endure and hope for a time justice in Nigeria would become the sine qua non. We ask the Igbo nation and other lovers of Nigeria to remain calm, pray and not take the law into their hands,” he said.
He concluded, “May Nigeria succeed, thrive and advance in justice, equity and fairness.”
The reaction came hours after Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court in Abuja sentenced Kanu to life imprisonment after finding him guilty on all seven terrorism charges.
Justice Omotosho sentenced Kanu to life imprisonment, ruling out the death penalty due to international concerns. He ordered Kanu to be held in a secure facility instead of Kuje Correctional Centre.
