US Republican ties Kanu sentence to Nigerian anti-Christian claims

A Nigerian court on Thursday handed a life sentence to separatist leader Nnamdi Kanu on terrorism charges.

Kanu (pictured in 2017) leads the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), which advocates for a seperate Biafran nation in the country’s Igbo-dominated southeast but is proscribed in Nigeria as a terrorist organisation.

Judge James Omotosho said prosecutors proved that his broadcasts and orders to his group incited deadly attacks on security forces and citizens.

“His intention was quite clear as he believed in violence. These threats of violence were nothing but terrorist acts, which were duly carried out by his followers,” Omotosho said.

Case linked to Christian persecution claims

The sentence of the high-profile seperatist comes at a delicate time for Nigeria. In recent weeks, US President Donald Trump has threatened military intervention in the country over what he claims is the mass killing of Nigerian Christians.   

Prior to the sentence, Kanu attempted to write to President Trump in an attempt to link his case with Trump’s theories about alleged wider violence against Christians, claims which have been heavily contested by the Nigerian government.

Kanu’s IPOB group has held pro-Trump rallies, notably in 2017 when the group said 11 people died in clashes with security forces. The police denied the fatality claims.

On the same day Kanu was sentenced, the US House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on African Affairs held a hearing on Trump’s earlier designation of Nigeria as “a country of particular concern” over allegations of persecution of Christians. 

Congressman John James, a Republican from Michigan who previously chaired the subcomittee, made a direct link between Kanu’s trial and what he said was a campaign of Christian persecution in Nigeria.

“Religious persecution is tied to political repression and weakening institutions in Nigeria. Example: the detention of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is a clear example. 

“In 2022, Nigeria’s court of appeal struck down the charges against him and ordered his release. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has also called for his unconditional release, yet he remains in solitary confinement in deterioriating health and recently had to represent himself in court. Nigeria has signalled that the law is optional and targeting Christians is fair game. 

“Just hours ago this morning, despite the pleas and cries of Nigerian people, and many Nigerian lawmakerrs, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was convicted on all charges.” 

The linking of the case to Trump’s wider claims of Christian persecution in Nigeria came as the Nigerian government launched a diplomatic offensive in the US in an attempt to influence the administration’s views. Nuhu Ribadu, President Bola Tinubu’s national security adviser, was heading a delegation to the US at the time of the sentencing.

Kanu’s road to sentencing

Kanu was abducted by secret agents in 2021 in Nairobi, Kenya, and brought back to the country under Tinubu’s predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari. Kanu had angered Buhari in his pirate radio broadcasts by claiming that the former Nigerian leader died in 2018 and was replaced by a Sudanese impostor named Jubril.

Kanu was charged with treasonable felony and terrorism over the activities of the Eastern Security Network, the armed wing of IPOB. He said the network was specifically formed to defend ethnic Igbos from attacks by Muslim Fulani herders.

His conviction by a lower court was quashed in 2022 by the Court of Appeal in Abuja, which said that the government did not follow due process in his extradition to Nigeria from Kenya, and that the federal court did not have jurisdiction to try the case. That ruling was overturned by the Supreme Court the following year, opening the door to a new trial.

The attempt by the Igbo-dominated southeast to secede as an independent state of Biafra resulted in almost three years of devastating civil war from 1967 to 1970 which unleashed famine. Estimates suggest that over 1 million died, largely from starvation, with some putting the total up to three times higher.

With the end of the war, many Igbo have continued to allege discrimination and marginalisation, making Kanu popular for articulating those grievances, especially among younger Igbos who didn’t experience the war.