Uchechi Okwu-Kanu, Wife of IPOB Leader, Nnamdi Kanu, Almost Lost Pregnancy Over Her Husband’s Detention

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In a report by YNaija, Uchechi Okwu-Kanu, the wife of detained leader of secessionist group Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, has accused the UK of abandoning her husband.

Okwu-Kanu stated this in an interview granted to an American magazine, Newsweek.

She said that her husband’s fundamental human rights has been violated as a court had granted him bail twice, yet he was still being held in detention.

She further said the UK is “evading responsibility” to ensure her husband’s rights are not violated.

Kanu, who is a dual national of Nigerian and Britain, is currently on trial over charges of criminal conspiracy, belonging to an unlawful society and conspiracy.

In December 2015, President Buhari had said that Nnamdi Kanu posed a flight risk, hence he cannot be granted bail despite a competent court mandating his release.

Okwu-Kanu told the magazine, “It is for the British government to get involved, to make sure that this person’s human rights are being respected and they haven’t done that. They’ve been to see my husband but that is not where it ends.”

Earlier this year, on January 4th, she gave birth to her first child, a boy. Okwu-kanu claims that she almost lost the child as she was under stress over her husband’s continued detention in Nigeria.

“His human rights have been violated and international human rights bodies should be all over the place because he is also human. From my perspective, they [the British government] are evading some responsibility. They should be doing more, they should visit him more… It’s obvious and apparent that the Nigerian government and the DSS is not obeying the law.”

She noted that she had experienced early contraction in November 2015 due to stress triggered by her husband’s detention.

“I managed to get an ambulance and got the whole thing under control. I was kept under care, watched for two or three days before I left the hospital.”

Okwu_kanu also said that IPOB members have shown her great support since her husband’s travails began.

She said: “The fact that they’re all behind me has strengthened me. Knowing that people are behind my husband, it gives me strength every day. That’s probably the reason why I’m still alive, the fact that he is loved by the people.”

“Biafraland is a blessed land,” she says. “We have everything in season.” Okwu-Kanu, who has lived in the UK all her live, says that she and her family will move to Biafra if it was re-established.

According to Newsweek, an Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) said: “The U.K. takes all accusations of human rights abuses seriously. We have provided assistance to Kanu since his arrest in October 2015, including visiting him regularly in prison and attending court appearances. In each of our visits to Kanu he has told us he is in good health and that he has access to both a doctor and his lawyer.”

The FCO spokesperson, however, noted also that the U.K. “fully supports the territorial integrity of Nigeria.”