Detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, has written to United States President Donald Trump, urging him to launch an independent investigation into alleged killings of Christians and Igbo people in Nigeria’s South East region.
In the letter dated November 6, 2025, and delivered through his lawyer, Aloy Ejimakor, to the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, Kanu appealed to Trump to follow through on his recent warning that Washington was “prepared to act militarily and cut aid if Nigeria fails to protect its Christian population.”
According to the letter obtained by our correspondent, Kanu called for a “U.S.-led independent inquiry into the situation of Judeo-Christians in Eastern Nigeria,” with unrestricted access to evidence, witnesses, and survivor testimonies.
He wrote:
“I extend warm greetings to you in the name of the Judeo-Christian faith and values we both hold dear. Your bold declaration on October 31, 2025, that the United States is ‘prepared to act’ militarily and cut aid if Nigeria fails to protect its Christian population ignited hope in the hearts of millions who have been abandoned by the world.”
Kanu told the U.S. President that Christians, especially in the Igbo heartland, were facing persecution and called for urgent international attention to prevent what he described as an “existential threat.”
Quoting reports from international human rights organisations, the IPOB leader referenced alleged massacres in the South East, saying:
“Amnesty International (2016) reported at least 150 peaceful Christian worshippers killed, bodies dumped in rivers. UN Special Rapporteur Agnès Callamard confirmed that at least 60 were killed and over 70 injured in St. Edmund’s Catholic Church during prayers.
This was not a clash. It was a massacre of worshippers commemorating their fallen. In Aba, 22 were killed on-site, and 13 bodies were exhumed from a borrow pit. Children were executed for singing ‘Sweet Jesus.’”
Kanu also recounted his personal ordeal since his arrest in 2015, stressing that despite being discharged and acquitted by the Court of Appeal in October 2022, he remains in the custody of the Department of State Services (DSS).
“I was never released, so there was no re-arrest—only continued unlawful imprisonment in blatant violation of constitutionally protected double jeopardy safeguards,” he stated.
He cited a finding by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which described his imprisonment as “arbitrary, unlawful, and politically motivated,” adding that his continued detention represented “a state capture of the rule of law to silence a Judeo-Christian voice.”
Kanu urged the U.S. government to hold emergency Congressional hearings on what he called the “Igbo Christian crisis” and to impose Magnitsky Act sanctions on certain Nigerian officials allegedly involved in rights violations.
He further requested American support for “an internationally supervised referendum on self-determination for the Igbo people,” which he described as “the only peaceful path to ending this circle of violence.”
Reaffirming his commitment to peace and justice, Kanu concluded:
“Mr. President, history will judge us by what we do when genocide knocks. You have the power to stop a second Rwanda in Africa. One tweet, one sanction, one inquiry could save millions.
We seek only justice, truth, and freedom—even from a prison cell. May the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob grant you wisdom and courage to deliver His people once again.”
