By Gideon Njoku
Senate Minority Leader, Enyinnaya Abaribe, says he does not know if Senator Ike Ekweremadu would agree to stand as Surety for detained Leader of the Indigenous Peoples Of Biafra, IPOB, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. Ekweremadu, a former Deputy Senate President, is now the Caucus Leader of Senators from the South-east.
Abaribe made the remarks on a TVC program, Journalists Hangout, while explaining the circumstances under which he stood Surety for Kanu in 2017. He ,also, explained why the Hon. Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court, Abuja, did not order for his arrest after Kanu disappeared from Nigeria.
Abaribe was one of those who stood Surety for Kanu when Kanu was granted bail by the Court in 2017. Explaining why he did that, Abaribe said circumstances, at the time, required him to.
He said that one of the conditions given by the Court was that Senator from Kanu’s region, took him on bail. Kanu is from Abia, South-east, and is the Senator.
According to Abaribe, since Kanu is an Igbo son, it fell on him as the Caucus Leader of Senators from the Zone to stand Surety for Kanu. “Given the same circumstances, I will stand bail for him again”, he told his stunned listeners.
Not a few people thought Abaribe was going to be locked up for not producing Kanu but Abaribe explained that his was not a straight forward case. Indeed, it was not.
Kanu was in his father’s house when soldiers stormed the compound. A number of people were killed. But Kanu escaped. But when the case came up, Abaribe explained that Kanu was no longer in his care as the last people who were with him were Federal troops. Justice Nyako understood, and instead of detaining Abaribe until Kanu was produced before her, she issued a bench warrant against Kanu.
The circumstances have, however, changed. The Leader of the South-east Senate Caucus is now Ekweremadu.
Asked if Ekweremadu would stand surety for Kanu, considering Ekweremadu’s position now, Abaribe, short of declining to comment, said he wouldn’t know.
Ekweremadu was one of those who, allegedly, worked behind the scene, for Kanu’s bail in 2017. However, months down the line, he received a raw deal in the hands of IPOB members when he went to Germany on invitation to the New Yam Festival of an Igbo Community. He was beaten up, allegedly, on the instructions of Kanu, for an alleged betrayal of the IPOB cause.
