IPOB’s Leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s Health Is Critical, Barrister Nnaemeka Ejiofor Raises Grave Alarm

Abuja, Nigeria – September 19, 2025

Barrister Nnaemeka Ejiofor, lead counsel to the kidnapped leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), has issued an urgent and deeply troubling statement after meeting with Mazi Nnamdi Kanu at the Department of State Services (DSS) headquarters in Abuja.

Ejiofor stressed that the message he delivered was dictated personally by Mazi Nnamdi Kanu during their meeting and read aloud on Kanu’s explicit instruction. The statement paints a picture of a man facing a life-threatening medical crisis while under illegal state custody—and of a government apparently unwilling to prevent an avoidable tragedy.

According to Kanu’s dictated account, the Department of State Services (DSS), without any tangible reason replaced the physician who first detected dangerously low potassium levels in his bloodstream, levels severe enough to trigger heart failure.

Kanu revealed that the DSS has taken his blood more than 50 times, sending samples as far as South Africa, yet they have offered no credible explanation for the persistent depletion. Treatments prescribed by the agency’s own medical department have failed to stabilize his condition, while his organs, including pancreas, prostate, heart, and kidneys are now exhibiting signs of failure.

“So Many Things Has Started Going Wrong With His Internal Organs, his Pancrease, His Prostrate, His Heart, His Kidney Function Is Not Functioning At Optimal Level,”

Kanu said he strongly suspects he may have been poisoned during his abduction by the Nigerian government in Kenya, in 2021 and warned that continued neglect could be fatal. “Only a man who is alive can stand trial,” he reminded authorities.

Despite sworn affidavit by Professor Aghaji, a highly regarded physician heading Kanu’s independent medical team, recommending immediate transfer to the government-owned National Hospital in Abuja, the DSS has consistently refused to comply. They have additionally kicked against the motion brought to the court for the court’s intervention.

According to a member of IPOB, Mazi Sochima Mbanali, this is not the first time the Nigerian government has obstructed Kanu’s access to essential medical care. Arguing that the pattern raises serious questions about intent, especially in light of public comments made during the administration of the late President Muhammadu Buhari, who once openly mused about the “opportunity” to have killed Kanu in Kenya.

“Given the repeated refusals to grant him the care that independent doctors have clearly prescribed, one must ask: is this willful neglect, or a slow and calculated effort to break his health?” Mbanali said, warning that the continued denial of treatment amounts to a state-sponsored threat to Kanu’s life.

Recall that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was not arrested; he was subjected to Extraordinary Rendition, an international abduction from Kenya in June 2021 by the Nigerian government. Human rights experts and international legal scholars have repeatedly described this as an outright violation of both local and international law, as well as Nigeria’s treaty obligations.

Despite this unlawful seizure, the Nigerian judiciary has allowed the trial to drag on for over four years. “A court that overlooks kidnapping to stage a trial is no longer a court of law; it is an instrument of political persecution,” Mazi Mbanali stated.

“The DSS and the federal government of Nigeria do not want Nnamdi Kanu to be taken to a proper medical facility where his health can be comprehensively be well taken care of, even though no court has found him guilty yet, yet he is being punished by refusing to help in building up his health” his lawyer emphasized.

Many Nigerians have condemned what they described as a judiciary stripped of independence and turned into a circus, pointing to how the courts have entertained proceedings against a man kidnapped across borders while refusing to enforce even the most basic human rights protections.

An IPOB media personnel Mazi Maduabuchi Nwachukwu highlighted that the first judge to preside over the case, Justice Binta Nyako, is herself embroiled in allegations of massive fraud—an issue that, according to Nwachukwu, exemplifies how compromised the judicial process has become.

Barrister Nnaemeka Ejiofor emphasized that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is not asking to be freed on compassionate or “sympathetic” grounds. Instead, Kanu insists on facing his trial in full health and is determined to present every fact openly to the public.

Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s deliberate neglect are likely to heighten international scrutiny of Nigeria’s treatment of detainees and the broader Biafran question. Global human rights advocates have repeatedly called on the Nigerian government to provide adequate medical care and to rectify the illegality of his extraordinary rendition.

The continued obstruction of medical treatment could transform a political trial into a humanitarian disaster. Nigerians are of the opinion that this is no longer merely a legal battle, It is a fight for the life of a man who was kidnapped in defiance of international law and who is being slowly destroyed under the watch of those sworn to uphold justice.