I will stand surety for IPOB leader, Kanu, if FG releases him to me — Sen. Orji Kalu

The Senate Chief Whip, Sen. Orji Kalu, has offered to stand as surety for the detained leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu when and if the Federal Government wants to release Kanu to him.

The two-term former Abia was hopeful that the Federal Government will obey the next court judgment on granting Kanu bail.

“I will stand surety for him (Kanu) if the Federal Government wants to release him to me,” Kalu said on Channels TV programme, “Political Paradigm” on Tuesday.

He regretted that even with his closeness to the family of Kanu in the Afaraukwu Ibeku area of Abia, the IPOB leader and his family did not listen to him.

Kalu, however, promised not to abandon the family in their “prolonged predicament” with the Federal Government.

“I made his father the traditional ruler of their place when I was governor. I’m close to them but they didn’t listen to me but that will not make him to abandon them. I will not abandon them,” said the chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

“I will stand surety for him if the Federal Government wants to release him to me. And I can keep him in my compound here in Abuja or Igbere (in Abia) and counsel him,” Persecondnews quotes the APC Senator as saying.

Senate Minority Leader, Enyinnaya Abaribe and two others had stood as sureties for Kanu before he was granted bail by the Federal High Court in Abuja on April 25, 2017.

Sen. Abaribe, who represents Abia South in the red chamber and who was deputy governor to Kalu between May 1999 and March 2003, ran into trouble when the IPOB leader jumped bail in 2017 and travelled abroad.

However, the embattled IPOB leader was brought back to Nigeria by security forces in June 2021.

He has since been in the custody of the Department of State Services (DSS) and is facing terrorism-related charges preferred against him by the Federal Government before Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court in Abuja.

On October 13, 2022, the Court of Appeal in Abuja acquitted and discharged Kanu of terrorism charges but the Federal Government appealed the judgment.

The court granted the government’s request to stop the execution of the judgment that set the IPOB leader free.

His continued detention is still being challenged in court amid political solution being mulled by the apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide.