The Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) has condemned the life imprisonment handed to the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, describing the ruling as politically motivated and an attack on the Igbo people.
In a statement released on Friday, the group’s leader, Comrade Uchenna Madu, accused Justice James Omotosho of delivering a judgment steeped in “open anger and tribalism,” asserting that Kanu was “sentenced to his master’s prison.”
MASSOB described the ruling as “not justice but vengeance from a man playing a script loaded with pathological hatred and jealousy against Ndigbo.”
Madu criticised the federal government, asserting that President Bola Tinubu had “set Nigeria on irredeemable fire” and claimed that the sentencing undermined the nation’s foundation.
The statement added that Kanu was sentenced for words spoken from abroad, following his alleged illegal rendition from Kenya, in violation of a United Nations ruling that called for his release.
The group contrasted Kanu’s sentence with that of Boko Haram co-founder Mamman Nur, recently sentenced to five years despite his involvement in attacks that killed thousands.
MASSOB described the discrepancy as evidence of double standards, saying, “In Nigeria today, words from London carry a heavier penalty than mass murder.”
MASSOB highlighted that Kanu was not legally extradited but “illegally rendered” to Nigeria in 2021, citing a June 2025 Kenyan High Court ruling that deemed the rendition a “blatant violation” of his rights.
The organisation also referenced United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention opinions from 2022 and 2025, which called for Kanu’s immediate release, and noted that the United States does not classify IPOB as a terrorist organisation.
The group condemned the prosecution under what it described as a “repealed anti-terror law” and stated that the absence of a savings clause further undermined the legality of the charges.
MASSOB insisted that the ruling was “not against Mazi Nnamdi Kanu” alone, but “against Ndigbo,” framing it as evidence of a “brutal, lawless, totalitarian regime.”
Kanu, a dual citizen of Nigeria and the United Kingdom, was arrested and extradited to Nigeria after nearly four years on bail.
While in London, he operated Radio Biafra and reportedly made provocative statements against the Nigerian state, security agencies, South-East governors, and former President Muhammadu Buhari, advocating for Biafran separatism—a movement seeking to restore a state that existed in Nigeria’s former Eastern Region from 1967 to 1970.
