I’m not aware of Kanu’s sureties withdrawal, Kanu’s lawyer | Nairalaw

The counsel representing the leader of the Indigenous People of
Biafra (IPOB) and Director of Radio Biafra, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu;
Barrister Aloy Ejimakor said that he is not aware about the
decision of Kanu’s sureties to withdraw their suretyship.

Prosecution counsel in Kanu’s trial; M.S. Labaran had on
Thursday March 28, informed Justice Binta Nyako that all three
persons who stood surety for Kanu had since applied to withdraw
from the matter which prompted Nyako to issue a bench warrant for
the arrest of the leader of the IPOB, after revoking the bail it
had earlier granted him. This is as Nyako relied on Section 352(4)
of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, ACJA, 2015, saying
that the court would proceed with his trial in absentia.

But Ejimakor in a release issued to journalists by IPOB
spokesman, Emma Powerful decribed the report making rounds in the
media that Kanu’s sureties have withdrawn their suretyship as
inaccurate.

According to Ejimofor, contrary to the reports in the media the
sureties were yet to withdraw their suretyship, stating that
sureties have constantly accused the Nigerian Army for invading
Kanu’s home which they reportedly said was the reason they were yet
to produce Kanu in court.

The release by Powerful while quoting Ejimofor read “The reports
in the media quoting Justice Binta Murtala-Nyako as stating (when
revoking Nnamdi Kanu’s bail on March 28, 2019) that the ‘three
sureties who bailed Kanu had applied to the court to withdraw their
suretyship’ is inaccurate”.

“I should know because I represent one of the sureties and we
never made such application, or anything close to it”.

“On the contrary, the sureties have been fighting to stay on as
sureties while pointing to the army invasion of Kanu’s home as the
sole and proximate reason for their inability to produce Kanu in
Court. That argument is still pending a hearing in a suretyship
proceedings that was adjourned sine die at the time of the entry of
the Order of bail revocation and the ensuing bench warrant”.

“For the foregoing reasons, we are currently studying the record
of proceedings of the said March 28 hearing to see whether it will
be necessary for the sureties to file fresh processes to protect
the integrity of their suretyship relationship with Nnamdi Kanu,
which is still valid and subsisting”.

Meanwhile, the leadership of IPOB in Abia State who spoke to our
reporter in Aba, the commercial nerve of the state on Saturday said
that they would not be cowed by the antics of the federal
government, stressing that there was no going back in their
agitation for the Sovereign State of Biafra.

They said that they would not relent in the support for Kanu
whom they said has been divinely placed to ensure that the people
of the Old Eastern region were liberated from the hands of tyrants
that have decided to suppress the people of the area even when the
easterners, according to them are the people that have over the
years sustained the economy of the country in the face of economic
recession.