Obi Aguocha (APC-Abia) has reiterated calls for a political settlement to secure the release of the leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu.

In a statement on Sunday, Mr Aguocha cautioned against legal moves to convert the life imprisonment sentence currently being served by Mr Kanu for terrorism and other crimes to death by hanging. 

He said that while Mr Kanu approached the appellate court seeking to overturn the sentence and secure his release, a counter-appeal was filed to convert the sentence to death by hanging.

According to him, some court cases end as legal records and others become national omens; Mr Kanu’s matter has moved firmly into the second category. 

The lawmaker, who represents Ikwuano/Umuahia North/Umuahia South federal constituency of Abia, said the matter was tied to questions of belonging, justice, fairness, and the place of the Igbo people in the Nigerian federation.

He explained that in the South-East, the matter was a recurring pressure point in town halls, political meetings, market conversations, church discussions, and the private calculations of voters seeking a solution to the Biafra agitation. 

Mr Aguocha, the chairman of the House Committee on Monitoring and Evaluation of House Committees, said a legal victory could be won and still leave the nation with a gaping political debt. 

“A sentence can be secured and still fail to settle the deeper question of belonging; in the South-East, many of us interpret the continued detention of Kanu as evidence that Nigeria is yet to find the right language for peace and reconciliation.

“That is why the phrase ‘Nothing Must Happen to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’ carries so much weight, as it is not merely a plea for mercy. It is an expression of fear, frustration, and standards in the administration of criminal justice,” he said.  

(NAN)