IPOB urges South-east to withdraw support for APC over Nnamdi Kanu’s appeal

The outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has asked the people of the South-east and others in parts of the South-South to withdraw their support for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) over the Nigerian government’s delay in listing Nnamdi Kanu’s appeal against his conviction.

Mr Kanu is the convicted leader of IPOB, a group seeking an independent state of Biafra, which it wants carved out of the South-east and parts of South-South Nigeria.

He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for terrorism in November 2025 at the Federal High Court in Abuja.

The IPOB leader, who is serving his jail term in a prison facility in Sokoto State, filed an appeal against his conviction and sentencing in February this year.

But the hearing on the appeal has not begun, even after about eight months.

In a statement on Tuesday which was forwarded to PREMIUM TIMES, the spokesperson of the IPOB, Emma Powerful, said South-easterners should reject the APC because the federal government allegedly “deliberately” failed to hear Mr Kanu’s appeal.

“Biafrans must withdraw voluntary political support from the APC, boycott its rallies, refuse its insignia, and deny it community legitimacy,” Mr Powerful said.

“Biafra” is a phrase often used by the separatist group to refer to the

South-east and some parts of the South-South of Nigeria.

The group also uses the phrase “Biafrans” to refer to indigenes of the two regions.

The IPOB spokesperson stressed in the statement that the Nigerian government moved “swiftly” to convict Mr Kanu but failed to hear the IPOB leader’s appeal with the same speed.

“Any regime is preferable to the APC. Under any other administration, the judiciary would at least be free to list and hear all pending legal cases according to the rule of law, rather than being subverted into an instrument of executive terror.

“Rather than facing judicial scrutiny before the Court of Appeal, the state has deliberately left the case unlisted,” he claimed.

Mr Powerful maintained that the federal government deliberately left the appeal unlisted by its failure to file its respondent’s brief.

“Our position is unequivocal: we will not lend our participation, support, or political legitimacy to a party whose government fears facing our leader’s appeal,” he said.