The family of detained Biafran activist, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, has issued a scathing rebuke of the British Government, accusing it of complicity in his unlawful rendition from Kenya to Nigeria and subsequent prosecution. The family said the UK’s silence is not just indifference — it is betrayal.
In a powerful statement released Sunday by family spokesman Prince Emmanuel Kanu, the Kanu family condemned what they described as the “silent orchestration and diplomatic shielding” of a British citizen’s abduction, torture, and trial — actions they claim the UK has deliberately ignored or enabled.
“The United Kingdom has never stopped killing Biafrans — only the methods have changed,” the family charged, recalling Britain’s role in the Biafran War and likening it to its current posture in Kanu’s ordeal.
Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), was abducted in Nairobi, Kenya, in June 2021 and extrajudicially rendered to Nigeria — an act that his family calls a violation of international law, Kenyan sovereignty, and British responsibility to its citizens.
“Why was the British High Commission in Nairobi inactive while a British citizen was abducted, drugged, tortured, and flown to Nigeria?” the family asked. “Why has the UK Foreign Office refused to demand his return or challenge the legality of his prosecution?”
Despite repeated visits to Kanu by British consular officials in Nigeria, the family said no meaningful action followed. Instead, the Nigerian government quietly amended charges against him, removing references to the UK — a move the family claims was a deliberate effort, possibly encouraged by British authorities, to erase UK jurisdiction from the case.
“This is not silence; this is complicity. This is a betrayal of both legal duty and basic decency,” Prince Emmanuel Kanu said.
The family called for the UK Parliament to launch a formal inquiry into the role of the British High Commissions in Nairobi and Abuja and demanded that Kanu be returned either to the UK or to Kenya, where he was originally abducted.
“If Britain cannot protect its own citizen, let it say so clearly — let it admit that some British passports are worth less than others,” the statement read.
The family also invoked the deep historical trauma of the Biafran War, accusing Britain of maintaining a “generational hostility” against the Igbo people, from arming Nigeria in the 1960s to aiding impunity today through “legal manipulation, judicial collusion, and geopolitical deceit.”
“In 1968, they supplied the bombs that killed Biafran children. In 2021, they supplied the silence that allowed their citizen to be kidnapped,” the family declared. “Their silence is not neutrality — it is the endorsement of tyranny.”
The statement ends with a stark warning: If anything happens to Kanu in Nigerian custody, the United Kingdom will bear moral and historical responsibility.