IPOB: Kanu’s lawyer asks army, police, others to withdraw from community for parents’ burial

Ahead of the burial ceremony of the Nnamdi Kanu’s parents in Abia State, his lawyer, Ifeanyi Ejiofor, has called on the Nigerian Army, the Inspector General of Police and other security agencies to withdraw their men from the community to allow for peaceful burial ceremony.
The embattled lawyer who spoke to journalists in Abuja on Monday, further appealed to the Abia State police commissioner, Mr Ene Okon, to ask his men to stay away from the ceremony.
The parents of the leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Eze Israel Okwu Kanu and Ugoeze Sally Kanu, died in 2019, and will be buried on February 14, 2020.
The appeal by Kanu’s lawyer is coming on the heels of an alleged warning issued to members of IPOB by the Abia State police command to steer clear of the burial ceremony.

It is also against the heavy presence of armed army personnel in the community.
Mr Okon said the police would not allow IPOB to participate in the burial.
He added that if members of the proscribed organisation were seen anywhere around the burial venue, the police would scatter the burial.
IPOB had earlier asked the Nigerian Army and other security agencies to better face the real security challenges confronting the country, rather than stopping them from burying Eze Israel Okwu Kanu and his wife.
The pro-Biafran said its members were not coming for war but to pay their last respects to the parents of their leader.
But the CP said he had reached out to the traditional prime minister of Afaraukwu, Kanu’s hometown, to make it clear that the burial would not hold if IPOB members attended.
Meanwhile, Ejiofor has called on the Nigerian Army to commence a full investigation into the invasion of his home on December 2, 2019, by men in military uniforms and to bring the perpetrators to book.
Ejiofor who described the attack on his home as an assassination attempt on his life, said the call for an investigation into the incident was a sequel to the denial by the army authorities that soldiers were not involved in the invasion.
The lawyer has filed a suit against the police wherein, he is asking a court to declare as illegal the move by the police declaring him wanted, stating that the police did not give him adequate time, opportunity and facilities to appear and respond to a complaint before the invasion of his home.
He is also asking the court to grant an order restraining the respondents, their agents, privies and howsoever called from further harassing, intimidating, threatening the life of the applicant and destroying his house and properties.
He is also asking for an order “directing the respondents to forthwith retract the publication/notice made to the public on December 3, 2019, declaring the applicant wanted.”
He is also asking for “compensatory and general damages in the sum of N2bn against the police.”
He is further asking for an unreserved public apology to the applicant in five national dailies and any other form of reparation that the court may deem fit to grant.