The Uchenna Madu-led Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) has reacted to the life imprisonment passed on Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, (IPOB).
MASSOB, in a statement made available to journalists on Friday, described it as unacceptable, noting that it amounted to a life sentence on the entire Igbo race.
NewsBits recalls that Justice James Omotosho of Abuja Federal High Court, on Thursday, convicted Kanu of terrorism and sentenced him to life imprisonment. The statement was signed by Comrade Uchenna Madu, leader of MASSOB.
According to him, “President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has finally set Nigeria on irredeemable fire. He has finally shot the Nigeria State on her deteriorated foundation.”
The pro-Biafra group said the judgement was not justice “but a vengeance from a man playing the script loaded with pathological hatred and jealousy against Ndigbo using Nnamdi Kanu as a standard for Igbo attack.”
“We saw the unpretended and open anger and tribalistic nature of Justice James Omotosho during his biased and evil ruling, sentencing Mazi Nnamdi Kanu to his master’s prison.
“Nigeria sentenced Mazi Nnamdi Kanu to life in prison for words spoken from foreign soil after illegally kidnapping him from Kenya, ignoring a United Nations ruling demanding his release, and prosecuting him under a law that no longer exists.
“Just a few days earlier, on November 18, Boko Haram co-founder and a chief Islamic terrorist commander, Mamman Nur, responsible for over 2,000 deaths of Nigeria citizens, was sentenced to just five years in prison.
“In Nigeria today, words from London carry a heavier penalty than mass murder. The real crime of Mazi was his bold exposure of the radical Islamic jihad consuming Nigeria and the government’s symbiotic relationship with the Islamic jihadist.
“That message, once controversial, is now undeniable. It is further evidence of the brutal, lawless, totalitarian nature of this genocidal regime of a clueless president,” the group stated.
MASSOB noted that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was seized in Kenya in 2021 not extradited, but illegally rendered.
“Kenyan High Court Justice Anthony Mrima in June 2025, delivered in his judgement that the abduction and rendition of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was a blatant violation of his fundamental rights.
MASSOB was aware that the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in their opinion released on both 2022 and 2025 stated that the deprivation of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s liberty is arbitrary.
They maintained that the appropriate remedy is his immediate release. “Even the United States of America has never designated IPOB as a terrorist organization. The U.S. State Department on record since 2017 have stated that United States of America has not considered IPOB as a terrorist organization.
“Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was charged under a repealed anti-terror law, with no savings clause for pending cases. This injustice is not against Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, it is against Ndigbo. Ndigbo have been sentenced to life imprisonment in Nigeria,” MASSOB declared.
