Nnamdi Kanu’s sureties to pay N100m each, court orders

A Federal High Court in Abuja has ordered the three persons, who stood as sureties for the leader of pro-Biafra separatist group Nnamdi Kanu to pay the sum of N100 million each to the court for failing to produce him in court since he was granted bail in April, 2017.

“I have taken the view that the oversight function is more important than this hearing,” The presiding judge Binta Nyako said on Wednesday.

“I do not have a proceeding against the sureties. All I want is for them to produce my Nnamdi Kanu.

“In this proceeding where these men have lost my Nnamdi Kanu, they are going to be in my trouble, because I gave him to them,” she added.

The sureties are Senator Abaribe, a Jewish priest, Immanuel Shalom and an accountant, Tochukwu Uchendu.

They stood in for Kanu when he was facing a sleuth of charges, most of which are connected to his call for the independence of the southeastern region of Nigeria.

He, however, went underground in September 2017 following the deployment of troops to the Umuahia where he lived.

The pro-Biafra separatist was later seen in Jerusalem on October 19 and he made a Facebook broadcast on October 21 where he said he left Nigeria because he could not get the necessary protection from the court.

“I did not jump bail, I left because the court failed to protect me,”  he said.

But the court on Wednesday varied the bail condition given to Kanu in his trial for alleged treason.

Nyako said she was varying the bail conditions because Abaribe’s lawyer, Chukwuma-Machukwu Ume, told the court that the senator was attending an oversight function and could not attend the trial.

She, therefore, stated that the court would make further directives after hearing the current applications by the sureties.