By Charles Igbo
Professor Martin Aghaji, a Cardiologist, Surgeon and the lead personal Doctor to Nnamdi Kanu, the now jailed leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPoB, has protested his patient’s transfer from Abuja to the Sokoto Correctional Centre to serve his sentence.
Recall that a Federal High Court, Abuja, presided over by the Honourable Justice James Omotosho, had, on Thursday, November 20, sentenced Kanu to life imprisonment. The Judge found him guilty of the seven-count charges preferred against him by the Federal Government. The charges bordered mostly on terrorism and a couple of other sundry issues. Four of the charges carry the death sentence, but Omotosho commutted the sentences to life jail.
Kanu, who had been under the custody of the Department of State Services, DSS, since he was brought back to Nigeria, was, immediately after the sentencing transferred to the Sokoto Correctional Centre to serve his sentence.
His transfer to Sokoto has been received with mixed feelings, with many of the opinion that it was meant to inflict another maximum punishment on him. Sokoto, they argue, is far away from not just his family, but for both his legal team which has promised a quick appeal of the sentence at the Court of Appeal and his personal medical doctor, Professor Aghaji.
Aghaji, in a letter to President Bola Tinubu said that Kanu has a serious heart condition and that keeping him so far away from his medical team would spell doom to his health. He said his abrupt transfer to Sokoto, especially, immediately, after his conviction was troubling. He said that Kanu needs constant monitoring because of his poor health condition.
Aghaji: “As the Lead Personal Physician to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, I am compelled to raise the alarm over the abrupt and deeply troubling decision to relocate my patient from the Department of State Services (DSS) Abuja to a correctional centre in Sokoto.”
Aghaji told Tinubu that Kanu was under specialized and intensive medical care throughout his detention at the DSS medical facility in Abuja. He revealed that Kanu’s health challenges prompted the DSS to move him from its headquarters at Aso Drive to the DSS Hospital on Airport Road for better observation.
Prof. Aghaji also revealed that Kanu gets evaluated three times a week at the DSS Hospital where his his blood profile – particularly the serum potassium level is also cheked every other week.
Aghaji posited that these procedures are mandatory because Kanu “runs a very low serum potassium level, the cause of which is yet to be established. To stay alive, according to Aghaji, the jailed IPOB leader takes daily potassium tablets as a stop-gap measure.
He emphasized it would be impossible to maintain the level of care in Sokoto and warned that Kanu’s relocation to such a distant facility without access to his medical team puts his life at risk.
Aghaji: “His medical team cannot monitor all these in Sokoto. His complex and chronic health conditions require consistent, expert oversight and immediate access to specialized treatment.”
Aghaji noted the logistical challenges as Sokoto is over 600 kilometres away from Abuja and difficult to access regularly for the required medical evaluations.
“His transfer to Sokoto effectively severs Mazi Nnamdi Kanu from this essential medical support system.
“If the three times weekly evaluation is severed, he has a high risk of complications that may affect his life”, the Physician pointed out.
He, therefore, appealed to President Tinubu for urgent intervention to reverse the decision and return Kanu to a location where he can access the critical medical care he needs.
“For the sake of his health – which must remain paramount above all other considerations – I urgently call on the Nigerian Government and the Nigerian Correctional Service to immediately reconsider this decision”, he wrote to the President.
Discover more from The Source
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
