The detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, whose request for bail was refused by the Federal High Court in Abuja on Tuesday, has pleaded to be transferred to Kuje Prison within the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Kanu, who is currently in custody of the Department of State Services (DSS), said he has a very serious health condition that could not be handled in his present detention centre.
The detained IPOB leader also distanced himself from the violence in South East Nigeria, vowing that those behind the violence, in the name of being IPOB members, would not be spared, once he is released.
Kanu, who spoke in Abuja immediately after the court rose on Tuesday after he was denied bail, told journalists that the violence is persisting because he was being held in the custody of DSS.
Earlier, Nnamdi Kanu had told the court that DSS lacked the medical facilities required for his treatment as his ailment had to do with the heart, a situation, he noted, had started manifesting in his physical appearance, especially his feet.
Besides, he decried that the security agency had continued to restrict his visitors from having access to him.
Speaking from the dock, shortly after his bail application was denied by trial Justice, Binta Nyako, Kanu alleged a conspiracy to allow him to die in custody of the secret police.
He said, “People will come to see me; they will not allow them. They don’t have the medical facility. I have congestive heart failure; they are patching me up. My foot is swollen. I asked them to conduct surgery, and they said they couldn’t. There is a conspiracy for me to die in detention. I want to be transferred to Kuje,” he told the court.
Speaking to the journalists, Kanu vowed that if released, there would be peace in the entire South East region of Nigeria.
According to him: “Anybody committing crime cannot go free. I swear it. Anybody committing crime in the east cannot go free. They are doing it because I am in the DSS (custody). If I were to be outside, nobody can try this. I suspect that some people in government are complicit. They are making money with the insecurity.
“They know if Nnamdi Kanu is outside, in two minutes, this nonsense will stop. Who is the bagger or idiot that will speak when I am talking? I will give an order in the East who is the idiot that I will give an order that will counter it? Nobody can. I am Nnamdi Kanu.
“Anybody involved in any form of violence in the East in the name of IPOB is a goner, and they know it. Let me come out of this mess, only two minutes, there will be peace in the East.”
Nnamdi Kanu is answering a seven-count treasonable felony charge that was preferred against him by the Federal Government.
Though the Court of Appeal quashed the charge and ordered his immediate release from detention, following an appeal that was lodged by the government, the Supreme Court vacated the judgement and ordered the resumption of his trial.