IPOB Demands Release Of Nnamdi Kanu Over ‘Tuberculosis Outbreak In DSS Facility’ In Abuja

The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has demanded the immediate release of its detained leader, Nnamdi Kanu, saying a Tuberculosis outbreak has hit the detention facility of the Department of State Services (DSS) in Abuja, where Kanu is being detained.

Kanu had raised an alarm over the Tuberculosis outbreak in the detention facility and that a detainee diagnosed with Tuberculosis was moved to his cell block amid his deteriorating health condition without proper medical attention.

On Thursday, IPOB in a statement by its Media and Publicity Secretary, Emma Powerful, alleged that the DSS has deliberately detained the tuberculosis-infected person in close proximity to Kanu’s cell to infect the IPOB leader with the disease.

Any harm on him will spell doom for Nigeria and everything that represents Nigeria both home and abroad,” IPOB warned.

IPOB said the detained tuberculosis patient had infected many detainees in the DSS detention facility and that the spread of the disease was fast because the facility “has no access to sunlight and lacks proper ventilation”.

“With information available to us, many inmates have already been infected by the virus, and DSS agents are not providing medication to infected persons. If urgent measures are not taken to avert the situation, there will be a tuberculosis pandemic in the Abuja DSS detention facility.

“We are calling on the Red Cross Society and World Health Organisation to visit the Abuja DSS facility and give independent and unbiased reports on the situation and recommendations for treatment.

“DSS and the Nigerian government must know that if anything untoward happens to Nnamdi Kanu, they will see what IPOB is capable of doing to this country,” it said.

The secessionist group called on the World Health Organisation and other health organisations, Red Cross Society, and Amnesty International Nigeria to prevail on the government to release Kanu as ordered by the Appeal Court.

“We shall no longer appeal to any organization should anything untoward happen to our leader while being detained illegally in DSS solitary confinement. Those who make a peaceful approach impossible make violent resistance an option,” it said.