UK self-determination push: Nnamdi Kanu’s demand for referendum not crime – Activists

A coalition of United States-based pro-Biafra activists have declared that the jailed leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu, did not commit any crime by demanding a referendum on the Biafra question in Nigeria.

This is as the activists asked the Nigerian government to learn from the self-determination push in the United Kingdom which has led to demands for referendum by the people of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The activists spoke in a joint statement issued by the American Veterans of Igbo Descent, AVID, Rising Sun and Ambassadors for Self-Determination, signed by Dr Sylvester Onyia, Mazi Evans Nwankwo and Rev. Dede Maxwell.

In the joint statement titled ‘Nigeria must learn from the UK: Referendum is a democratic right, not a crime – our stand on Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’, the activists noted that nobody has been arrested and charged with treason in the UK for championing a referendum.

“We have watched with cold fury the recent events in the United Kingdom, the very country that imposed its parliamentary system on Nigeria and then abandoned every principle it claimed to teach us.

“On 14th September 2026 in Cardiff, the leaders of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland signed a joint accord declaring their inalienable right to self-determination. On 22nd September 2026 the Scottish Parliament voted 84–18 that “Scotland is a nation that has a right to decide its own future.” Even a tiny English village, Piddington in Oxfordshire, held a referendum to decide its own fate.

“In every single one of these cases the British Government did not drag anyone to court for treason neither were people shot dead. The Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, debated them. No one was abducted. No one was thrown into a dungeon and left to rot. No one’s health was deliberately allowed to collapse in custody. That is what democracy looks like when the powerful are forced to respect it,” the activists stated.

Stating their position, the activists stressed: “If the United Kingdom can allow open debate and parliamentary votes on self-determination in 2026, by what twisted logic does Nigeria criminalise the same demand? We demand the immediate inclusion of referendum as a constitutional right. When a people stand by their own candidates and vote according to their collective will, that is already a form of referendum.”

According to them, it is the legitimate expression of a people’s right to be governed by those they trust and not by those who occupy them

Also stating their position on Nnamdi Kanu, the activists condemned what they described as the deliberate neglect of the IPOB leader’s health in detention. They said the development is not merely inhumane but a calculated act of cruelty.

“Let it be stated for the world to hear without apology: Mazi Nnamdi Kanu asking for a referendum is not a crime. In Scotland it is called democracy. In Wales it is called self-determination. In Northern Ireland it is protected by the Good Friday Agreement. In Nigeria it is branded terrorism so that a British citizen can be silenced.”

The activists also faulted the British government’s silence on Nnamdi Kanu’s case, especially the delay in hearing the appeal he filed to challenge his conviction.

“Britain has abandoned the most basic tenet of the common law it forced upon Nigeria: justice delayed is justice denied. Why has Britain not demanded an explanation from Nigeria for refusing to hear the appeal against a conviction that rests on no clear written law? Britain’s calculated silence and deliberate docility amount to active complicity in the extraordinary rendition and illegal conviction of its own citizen,” the activists stated while accusing the British of betrayal.

They added that Kanu called for a referendum because he envisioned a Nigeria of justice, equity and true federalism — or the freedom to walk away if that Nigeria proved impossible.

They demanded the immediate medical evacuation and treatment of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, full respect for his fundamental human rights, “and the unconditional end of his unjust detention for demanding precisely what Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are freely demanding in the United Kingdom today”.