The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) says it has indefinitely suspended its leader Nnamdi Kanu.
The proscribed group added that Kanu has also been delisted as director of Radio Biafra in a bid to reposition the organisation and strengthen its operations.
The decision was contained in a statement issued on Thursday by Chikadibia Edoziem, head of the directorate of state (DOS), IPOB’s highest decision-making body.
The group said IPOB was established as a self-determination movement “formed and nurtured by Biafrans in the diaspora”, and not by any individual, for the restoration of a sovereign Biafra.
It said no individual has the authority to dissolve its central leadership structure.
Edoziem said the decision to suspend Kanu was reached at a DOS meeting on June 17 after reviewing an intelligence report from “IPOB’s M-Branch” about a meeting involving Kanu and officers of the Department of State Services (DSS) and the Nigerian Intelligence Agency (NIA) in Sokoto prison.
He said the DOS noted that Kanu’s movements and communications are monitored by the DSS, and that some prison communications have led to arrests and deaths of IPOB members.
Edoziem noted that there are plans to form a new militia “through which a new round of violence will be instigated and unleashed in Biafraland” and to weaken and eventually dissolve the IPOB movement by targeting its leadership structure.
Edoziem added that the suspension is also intended to “prevent those individuals or group of individuals who hitherto are minded to commit crime in Biafraland, engage in criminal activities or carry out any actions whatsoever supposedly on the authority of the suspended office of the leader”.
He said the suspension will “prevent unchecked actions, reckless assumption of authority and unguarded utterances from resulting in the reckless arrests, torture and needless death of Biafran youths in Biafraland”.
According to the statement, the move will also “halt and checkmate individuals and groups not affiliated with IPOB, who claim to derive legitimacy to carry out actions that conflict with IPOB’s mission statement, from the existence of the now suspended office of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra”.
“Any such crime or criminal activity taken in the name of the suspended office of the leader shall not be attributed to IPOB but solely to the person or persons who may have instigated them,” the statement reads.
“IPOB shall hence forward not be held accountable for actions of individuals or group of Individuals not holding any active position within IPOB or for actions of persons not authorized by the Directorate of State to act on behalf of the Indigenous People of Biafra Self-Determination movement.”
NNAMDI KANU’S ORDEAL
In November 2025, James Omotosho, a judge at the federal high court in Abuja, sentenced Kanu to life imprisonment for terrorism charges.
Kanu, founder of IPOB, was handed life imprisonment for counts one, four, five and six of a seven-count charge.
The IPOB leader got 20 years and five years’ imprisonment on counts three and seven, respectively.
During the court proceedings, a DSS officer claimed that the IPOB leader admitted during interrogation to inciting Nigerians to launch attacks on police officers.
Another DSS officer had linked the violence that trailed the #EndSARS protest to “inciting comments from Kanu”.
Kanu has appealed his terrorism conviction.
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