It is the authoritative information of the Southeast Based Coalition of Human Rights Organizations (SBCHROs); comprising International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law (Intersociety), Anambra State Branch of the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO), Center for Human Rights & Peace Advocacy (CHRPA), Human Rights Club (a project of LRRDC)(HRC), Forum for Justice, Equity & Defense of Human Rights (FJEDHR), Society Advocacy Watch Project (SPAW), Anambra Human Rights Forum (AHRF), Southeast Good Governance Forum (SGGF), International Solidarity for Peace & Human Rights Initiative (ITERSOLIDARITY), Street Law Africa (LawAfrica) and Igbo Ekunie Initiative (pan Igbo rights advocacy group) that detained Citizen Nnamdi Kanu had never returned to Nigeria or traveled to other parts of the world including his second home-State of the United Kingdom without following and applying legitimate diplomatic processes and procedures.
Specifically, he did not return to Nigeria via Lagos, Southwest Nigeria in October 2015 without international passport of Nigerian origin. By convention or treatise (international law), which is applicable in Nigeria and the United Kingdom, Citizen Nnamdi Kanu is a member of international, Nigerian and UK citizenship. Also by the provisions of Chapter Three of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria, Citizen Nnamdi Kanu is a citizen of Nigeria by birth or parenthood and by the provisions of the relevant laws of the UK; he is also a UK citizen by birth or naturalization. Generally, in the eyes of international law, he is a dual national of UK and Nigeria. Further, by relevant treaties of the European Union and the ECOWAS, Citizen Nnamdi Kanu can enter, leave, stay or live in any member-State of EU or ECOWAS; provided he has UK (EU) or ECOWAS (Nigerian) passport.
Citizen Nnamdi Kanu as an international citizen of UK and Nigeria backgrounds is entitled to and has two international passports of UK and Nigerian citizenship and they are fully and steadily used when he is traveling out of Nigeria to UK or coming to Nigeria from UK. Traditionally and specifically in Citizen Nnamdi Kanu’s case; visa is not required of him when he is leaving UK to Nigeria with Nigerian Passport or when he is traveling to UK from Nigeria with UK Passport. By law, Citizen Nnamdi Kanu is mandated to show his Nigerian Passport to UK immigration officials at any UK international airport enroute Nigeria and to Nigerian immigration officials on arrival at any Nigerian international airport; likewise using and showing his UK Passport to immigration officials when traveling to UK from Nigeria. By law, Citizen Nnamdi Kanu is under no legal or moral obligation whatsoever to show or surrender all or either of his two international passports to anybody including the DSS operatives in his hotel room.
His right to privacy and protection of his property including his two international passports is sacrosanct and unquestionable. Production of Citizen Nnamdi Kanu’s international passport (s) can only be ordered by a court of competent records. Neither President Muhammadu Buhari nor his DSS operatives has any legal or moral power or authority to coerce Citizen Nnamdi Kanu into showing or surrendering his international passport(s) under the guise of arrest or investigation; except by personal volition of Citizen Nnamdi Kanu.
This is more so when Citizen Kanu’s violent arrest was carried out hours, if not days after he had returned to Nigeria and checked into a hotel. President Muhammadu Buhari’s assertion on 30th December 2015 that “are you aware that that man called Kanu holds two UK and Nigerian citizenship and entered into Nigeria without a passport”, is nothing but a clear case of “presidential ignorance and falsehood derived from unprofessional and falsified intelligence reports”. The falsehood is today compounded further and transformed into “investigative perjury” to the extent that the Federal Ministry of Justice had adopted it as its main ground of counter affidavit and opposition to the application filed by Citizen Nnamdi Kanu’s defense lawyers before an Abuja Division of the Federal High Court.
The Federal Government’s claim that “Kanu had admitted (to them) that he is a British citizen and that he sneaked into the country”, and that “there is the possibility of him sneaking out if admitted to bail”; is fallacious, vexatious, unfounded, spurious, intimidating, insulting, coercing, magisterial and totally untrue. Why Citizen Kanu Should Be Granted Humanitarian Bail: Today marks 102 days since Citizen Nnamdi Kanu was arrested and detained by DSS on 14th October 2015 without conditional or unconditional release. In the history of democracy in Nigeria, no citizen except Citizen Nnamdi Kanu had been arrested and detained for 90 days without trial or release on pretrial bail.
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