Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka says he believes the Nigerian government “kidnapped” the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra Nnamdi Kanu.
Attorney-general of the federation and minister of justice Abubakar Malami had announced Mr Kanu’s arrest and repatriation last week. He, however, failed to disclose the country where he was “intercepted”.
Speaking further on the arrest, minister of information and culture Lai Mohammed said the federal government trailed the IPOB leader for two years after he jumped bail in 2017 before arresting him.
Soyinka told BBC Pidgin in an interview published on Monday that he believes Kanu was kidnapped by the Nigerian government.
The professor of English said there would be trouble when the truth about Kanu’s arrest comes out, adding that there are concerns the Nigerian government acted outside international law.
“The second issue has to do with the way Kanu conducted himself outside the nation. The level of the hate talks from Kanu outside was unfortunate. But for me, hate talks is an issue that the laws of any nation can judge so it comes back to the issue of whether it was right to quote and unquote kidnap, you can say intercept as much as you want, but I think they kidnapped Nnamdi Kanu and that is wrong internationally and also wrong morally,” he said.
Soyinka urged the government to apologise to activist Sunday Igboho over the raid by security operatives at his residence last week.
He said that if Sunday Igboho goes to court the government would be embarrassed.
