by Roqeebah O.

The five governors of the South-East made public their plans to visit the President to discuss the continued detention of the leader of the secessionist group, Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu.

It’s very unlikely that that meeting has taken place going by the updates that we have from the Presidency via social media. The President has met with Senate President, Saraki and Speaker Yakubu Dogara but not much else has been heard from those quarters all day.

But that’s not the issue. Hopefully, that meeting will take place sometime soon. It just really brings us to ask why the President has decided to hold on to at least four Nigerians despite court orders that have restored their freedom to liberty. Or at the very best, why he has not ensured that they have been let go.

Nnamdi Kanu was picked up from his hotel room in Golden Tulip in October 2015 by officials of the State Security Services and remanded in Abuja. The charges against him He’s been in custody in Kuje Prison since then despite several attempts to secure his bail.

On December 17th, 2015, The Federal High Court’s Justice Adeniyi Ademola (who is now standing trial for fraud) ordered that the SSS release Mr Kanu unconditionally. But that decision was upturned in January by a different Judge, Justice Tsoho. After Tsoho’s denial, Nnamdi Kanu accused the Judge of bias, forcing him into recusal. It was at this point Justice Binta Nyako was assigned the matter; a choice that Kanu still is not satisfied with.

[Read also: Why Nnamdi Kanu has continued to remain in detention according to IPOB]

The charges against Mr Kanu border on treasonable felony, unlawful possession of firearms and terrorism and other offences arising from agitation by the group for the secession of Biafra from Nigeria, a movement that he has continued to defend even in prison. But many of the charges have been dropped and even co-defendants have been let go, reducing the severity of his charges to a considerable extent. So it remains a befuddling question why Nnamdi Kanu has not been granted bail despite several attempts and readiness to meet the bail conditions.

Kanu’s continued retention in prison for over a year makes no sense anymore. But let’s even assume that there’s a subsistent court order refusing Nnamdi Kanu bail, how about Elzakzaky, and his wife? How about Sambo Dasuki?

Sambo Dasuki has been in detention since his 2015 arrest for allegedly stealing $2bn and awarding phantom contracts to buy 12 helicopters, four fighter jets, and ammunition meant for the Nigeria’s military campaign against Boko Haram militants.

Sambo Dasuki was granted bail the same month he was arrested and though he was not released, another Justice reaffirmed the bail in January 2017. Before then, an ECOWAS court had earlier given a judgment in 2016 setting aside the unlawful detention of the Ex-NSA boss; even imposing a fine of NGN 15,000 on the Federal Government as compensation to Dasuki.

He’s still in detention today. With no explanation.

The Elzakzakys’ case is probably the worst. El-Zakzaky, and his wife Malama Zeenah Ibraheem, have been in detention without charge for more than a year following the Shiite clash with the military in Kaduna in 2015. On the 2nd of December 2016, the Federal High Court in Abuja ruled that the couple be released within 45 days describing their detention as illegal and unconstitutional. The deadline for the court order expired since the 16th January but they are still in detention.

Zeenat even penned an emotional letter to the President to ask him why they have remained in detention still.

It’s really sad that all of these cases are happening during a democratic dispensation. It’s totally messed up and it won’t only be nice for the President to finally say something about it, his take on their continued detention has become extremely important.

And this is absolutely not a question of their crimes – for which none of them has been convicted, by the way – or how we feel about any one of them.