I Have Activated Strategy To Secure Nnamdi Kanu’s Release — Otti Assures Abians

Abia State Governor, Dr. Alex Otti, has assured citizens that efforts to secure the release of the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, have already been set in motion, describing Thursday’s Federal High Court judgment as “not yet the end of the road.”

Kanu was on November 20, 2025, convicted of terrorism-related offences and sentenced to life imprisonment by a Federal High Court in Abuja a development Otti said has thrown Abia State and the entire Southeast into shock and sorrow.

In a statement issued on Friday, the governor said the news had “broken a lot of our people,”but assured that a diplomatic mechanism earlier agreed with the Federal Government to pursue Kanu’s release had now been activated following the conclusion of the court process.

Otti recalled that he has consistently advocated for dialogue as the best route to addressing the IPOB issue, dating back to 2017 when soldiers invaded Kanu’s Afaraukwu home in Umuahia.

He said he condemned the incident at the time and warned in his ThisDay column, “Operation Python Dance: Killing a Fly with a Sledgehammer,” that such forceful approaches would escalate rather than resolve the crisis.