Chidi Samuel || Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, the Senator representing Abia North Senatorial district in the National Assembly and one of the three sureties for the now at large leader of the Biafra Separatist group, IPOB has said he should not be held accountable if Nnamdi Kanu fails to appear in court on October 17 as scheduled.
Senator Abaribe made his position known in an interview with Arise Television.
According to him, the Nigeria military breached agreement the sureties had with the federal government by invading Mr. Kanu’s home before the court date, stating that nobody could ascertain whether the IPOB leader is dead or alive after the invasion.
Abaribe said, “He was supposed to appear in court on October 17. It was our job as sureties to produce him in court. We have been speaking with him.
“I spoke with him around August 23. I had to invite him to a meeting with the South-east Senate caucus in my home at Obingwa in Abia.
“We discussed and we told him what we felt and where he was going out of bound and we told him to confine himself to the laws of the land.
Abaribe maintained that he had been unable to reach Kanu since the army invaded his home as the number he used to reach him had been switched off.
He continued, “Now, I spoke to him on September 14, and it was the same day that the military moved into his place.”
“The real question is why will you go one month before his appearance in court to effect an arrest, to kill him or whatever?
“So we felt that you cannot hold me responsible if you didn’t wait for the date he was supposed to be in court.”
Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, a Jewish priest, Immanuel Shalom, and an accountant and Abuja resident, Tochukwu Uchendu stood as sureties for the IPOB leader when he was granted bail earlier in the year by Justice Binta Nyako with stringent bail conditions.