The immediate past chairman of the Enugu State Traditional Rulers Council, Royal Majesty, Igwe Lawrence Agubuzu, has issued a passionate and emotional plea to President Bola Tinubu, demanding the immediate release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the convicted leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
Speaking on Tuesday during the 2026 National Traditional and Religious Leaders Summit on Health in Abuja, which the video clip has gone viral on social media platforms, the respected monarch warned that the continued detention of Kanu is fuelling agitation in the South-East and making traditional rulers look like “sellouts” in the eyes of the youths.
In a video clip of the speech shared on X (former Twitter) handle of Arise TV, Igwe Agubuzu expressed deep dissatisfaction with the judicial handling of Kanu, who was recently convicted by Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court and remanded in Sokoto Prison.
The former Nigeria’s Ambassador suggested that if the Nigerian government considers Kanu too “dangerous” for the country, he should be deported rather than caged in a northern prison.
“So, sir, the ball stops on your court. Bring this man out,” the monarch said, addressing the President. “If we don’t want him in Nigeria, return him to Kenya or London, where they took him from. We cannot make progress in this country if we don’t tell ourselves the whole truth.”
The traditional ruler noted a glaring disparity in how the Nigerian state treats agitators from different regions.
He pointedly referenced the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, who was reportedly planning to confer a high honour on Yoruba nation activist Sunday Igboho.
“His Imperial Majesty (The Ooni) is arranging to confer a very high honour on Sunday Igboho, who in my own part of Nigeria in the South-East, we see him as a counterpart of Nnamdi Kanu,” Agubuzu lamented. “My brother, fellow royal father, does not seem to understand the pain in my heart when Nnamdi Kanu is in Sokoto.”
Agubuzu warned that the security situation in the Southeast has placed traditional rulers in physical danger, as the youth perceive them as complicit in the government’s perceived marginalisation of the region.
“Some of us here have been asked to go and work. But the young people in the Southeast are so agitated, they can even beat us. They see us as sellouts. We come to Abuja, they may think we come to collect money, and then we keep quiet,” he revealed.
The monarch’s “tell-it-all” speech highlights the growing pressure on the Tinubu administration to adopt a political solution to the Kanu impasse, as regional leaders increasingly find it difficult to contain the boiling anger of the Igbo youth.
