President Muhammadu Buhari has ruled out the bail option for the leader of the proscribed Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) Nnamdi Kanu.
Instead, Buhari insisted that the IPOB leader should “justify all the uncomplimentary things he had been saying against Nigeria in Britain”.
“He felt very safe in Britain and said awful things against Nigeria. We eventually got him when he stepped out of the United Kingdom, and we sent him to court,” Buhari said during a bilateral meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on the margins of the 26th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Kigali, Rwanda.
“Let him defend all that he has said there. His lawyers have access to him. Remember he jumped bail before, how are we sure he won’t do it again if he’s admitted to bail?”
According to a statement by presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina, Buhari also ruled out seeking a third term in office, claiming the person who attempted it did not end well in what many believe is a subtle reference to former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
“Another term for me? No!” he maintained. “The first person who tried it didn’t end very well.”
Aside from this, Johnson and Buhari also discussed security issues in Nigeria with the Nigerian leader linked the renewed wave of crimes in Nigeria to the crisis in Libya.
Buhari said the keenness of the PM to help Nigeria tackle insecurity is a good step but reiterated that since the fall of Muammar Gadaffi after 42 years in power, armed guards have been unleashed on countries in the Sahel.
These people, he said “are causing havoc everywhere, as the only thing they know how to do is to shoot guns”.
He, however, said the country is making progress in the fight against Boko Haram and other groups.
One of the steps being taken by the Nigerian government, he added, was educating that people that only an unserious person could kill innocent people, “and say Allah Akbar (God is Great). God is justice. You can’t take innocent souls, and ascribe it to God. And the education process is working, the people now understand Boko Haram as anti-God, and not about religion”.