After three years in detention, the Director-General of the State Security Service (SSS), Adeola Ajayi, has ordered the release of Kenneth Nwafor, who was wrongfully accused of being a member of the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
Mr Nwafor, who hails from Isuikwuato Local Government Area of Abia State, was arrested in July 2022 over false allegations of being an IPOB member and involvement in the group’s activities.
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Mr Ajayi, PREMIUM TIMES learnt, also awarded N5 million to Mr Nwafor as compensation for his wrongful arrest and detention.
The director-general also offered the man free medical care.
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The latest development comes about one month after the SSS ordered the release and compensation of Chineze Ozoadibe, an Abuja-based businesswoman wrongfully accused and detained for alleged illegal oil bunkering.
Mrs Ozoadibe, according to this newspaper, was given N10 million in compensation in October after spending months in the SSS’s custody.
Nwafor’s release
Sources within the SSS said on Tuesday that a detailed investigation conducted by the secret police exonerated Mr Nwafor from involvement in IPOB activities.
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One of the sources, who asked not to be named because he was not permitted to speak on the matter, said the release and compensation of Mr Nwafor were in line with the director-general’s directive that all the cases he inherited be reviewed to ensure due process and prompt dispensation of justice.
“The director-general directed investigation officers to conduct a detailed review of all pending cases, and they have been dutifully doing that. Nwafor’s case is one of such,” the source said.
“The gesture, one of the severals by the DG, is a testament to his resolve to comply with the rule of law and adherence to the service standard operating procedure,” he stated.
IPOB and insecurity in Nigeria
IPOB is an outlawed group leading agitation for an independent state of Biafra, which it wants carved out from the South-east and some parts of the South-south of Nigeria.
The separatist group has been linked to some deadly attacks in the South-east region. But it has repeatedly denied any involvement in the attacks.
In November, Nnamdi Kanu, the group’s leader, was convicted and then sentenced to life imprisonment for terrorism at the Federal High Court, Abuja.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian security agencies have often been criticised for alleged extrajudicial killings in the South-east under the guise of fighting IPOB and other pro-Biafra groups in the region.
In 2016, for instance, Amnesty International Nigeria accused the Nigerian Army of extrajudicial killing of at least 17 unarmed pro-Biafra supporters in Nigeria’s south east.
The allegation corroborated PREMIUM TIMES’ investigation which documented the killing of dozens of unarmed Nigerians by the army in Onitsha, Anambra State and other areas of the South-east within the year.
In 2022, another PREMIUM TIMES investigation found that many unarmed residents in the South-east of Nigeria were killed by Nigerian troops deployed to check Biafra agitation in the region.
The report detailed how the Nigerian troops killed the unarmed residents of the region and labelled them as IPOB members.
Earlier in the same year, this newspaper documented how innocent residents of the region were killed by security agencies fighting suspected IPOB members.
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