SaharaReporters on Friday reported that Kanu declared an end to all sit-at-home exercises, including Monday’s sit-at-home exercise and any other proposed to force the government to release him.
Aloy Ejimakor, the special counsel for Nnamdi Kanu, the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, has said the separatist leader was not pressured by the Nigerian government or anybody to write a letter declaring an end to all sit-at-home exercises in Southeast Nigeria.
SaharaReporters on Friday reported that Kanu declared an end to all sit-at-home exercises, including Monday’s sit-at-home exercise and any other proposed to force the government to release him.
Kanu made the declaration in a handwritten letter, which Ejimakor read out to journalists during a world press conference, held in Enugu State.
Kanu in the written declaration dated July 24, 2023, which Ejimakor read, followed the refusal of Simon Ekpa, a self-proclaimed disciple to announce the cancellation and further declaration through his media platforms.
Kanu warned Ekpa to "desist from calling for any sit-at-home henceforth" and "to make a public announcement to the effect that he (Mazi Simon Ekpa) is in receipt of a direct order from him (Mazi Nnamdi Kanu) to cancel any pending sit-at-home in place at the moment".
But while featuring on Arise News Newsnight on Saturday, Ejimakor was asked if there was any chance that Kanu was put under some kind of pressure to write the letter to secure his freedom.
Ejimakor denied that Kanu was under any kind of pressure to write the letter, saying, "Nnamdi Kanu was renditioned over two years ago so if he would have succumbed to any kind of pressure from any quarters, from the government or whatnot, this would have happened over two years ago, why now?
"He's not the kind of man that succumbs to pressure. If he does, perhaps he would have dropped the agitation by now considering the travails and predicaments that he has undergone so there was no pressure of any sort.
I was sitting with him unless you are suggesting that I pressured him which I didn't.
"The topic of our discussion when I met with him on the 24th of July wasn't this so he sprung it on me as a surprise.
I went in there to brief him on legalities and the status of certain cases that we have around Eastern Nigeria and the federal capital so he sprung this at me. So he must have ruminated over it, thought about it before I came into the room to meet with him."
When asked who the people enforcing the sit-at-home exercise are loyal to, Ejimakor said, "I would speak on what I know as of council. That might be limited knowledge that may be all you need to know.
"Nnamdi Kanu is the supreme leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra. There are no two supreme leaders and at this moment, there is no deputy leader.
They have other leaders that are lower down the hierarchy of supreme leader or deputy leader.
"Standing on that, anybody that acts in the name of IPOB whether the person acted for good or bad or for the ugly is often attributed to the head of the organisation and the fish rots from the head.
"So Nnamdi Kanu is very concerned about this. He never meant for things to go this awry, to go out of control. He is trying to separate the apples from the oranges here so that when somebody goes out there and says 'I'm a disciple of Nnamdi Kanu' and he levies violence on the general public in the name of sit-at-home, Nnamdi Kanu gets to take the bad name simply because he is the head of the organisation. It's not fair to him.
"Having considered all this, he needed to provide this clarity that you talked about, to separate the apples from the oranges and the way he thought he could do that is to end it once and for all.
"To start from the beginning and end the process that is causing the issues and the act that is causing all these issues is the sit-at-home. I met with him on the 24th and he spoke to me along these lines that he was now left with no choice but to take this drastic step."