The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has said that the detained leader of the proscribed secessionist group, the Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, cannot be trusted and should not be granted amnesty.
The pan-Northern socio-political organisation said Kanu cannot be trusted because he once jumped bail in 2017 and fled the country. ACF, therefore, urged the President, Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), to follow the rule of law and leave the IPOB leader to face trial for the charges brought against him.
ACF National Publicity Secretary, Emmanuel Yawe, stated this in an exclusive interview with The PUNCH on Monday.
He was reacting to demand by some respected Igbo elders that the President should release Kanu, who is facing terrorism-related charges and has since been detained in the custody of the Department of State Servies.
The ACF scribe said Kanu should be allowed to face trial. Yawe said, “What would happen to the case against him (Kanu)? The case would be thrown away? If he (Buhari) releases him that will be the end of the case. We have a democracy and there is due process of law; there is the separation of power between the judiciary and the executive. If somebody is taken to court, it is now left for the judiciary to say the person is guilty or not.
“The President who is part of the executive cannot take a case to court and then adjudge it himself by releasing the person and say he (Kanu) should go free. We stand by the rule of law.
“When Kanu was re-arrested, we cautioned that he should not be given an extrajudicial trial; we said he should be tried by the provisions of the law and now we find it strange that somebody who was accused would be released without trial.”