“Biafra or Death” - Protesters

In Aba, the commercial hub of Abia State, about two thousand people stormed the street calling for the release of Mr Nnamdi Kanu.

Mr Nnamdi Kanu operated a radio station calling for a separate state of Biafra.

Many carried placards with slogans such as “Biafra or death” and waved the Biafran flag — a golden rising sun on red, black and green.

Others wore T-shirts and caps with the image of Nnamdi Kanu, the director of Radio Biafra and founder of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, pressure group. Some sang freedom songs and carried the outlawed Biafran pound currency. A protester reportedly tore a Nigerian flag.

“Getting our leader out of detention is our immediate concern, but ultimately we want to be free from Nigeria,” IPOB’s Abia coordinator, Ikechukwu Ugwuoha, told the crowds.

Meantime, an Abuja Chief Magistrate Court sitting at Wuse Zone 2, yesterday, ordered the Department of State Services, DSS,  to  produce the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu, before it, on November 23 2015.

Chief Magistrate Shauibu Usman, who gave the order, said he was disappointed that despite a subsisting order, the court made on October 23, the DSS still refused to produce Kanu yesterday.

Kanu who is the  Director of Radio Biafra and Biafra Television,  was on October 17, picked up in Lagos by security operatives, shortly after he arrived Nigeria from his base in the United Kingdom.

At the resumed sitting yesterday, the prosecution, failed to  comply with the court order.

The prosecuting counsel, Mr. Moses Idakwo, told the court that  Kanu was not brought before it yesterday due to the fact that there was a pending application, challenging the jurisdiction of the Abuja Magistrate Court  to proceed with the trial.

He said the defendant would only be produced after the motion querying the jurisdiction of the court has been determined.