Kalu in talks with Northern leaders, US to grant  IPoB detainees amnesty

Chief Whip of the Senate and two-time governor of Abia state (1999-2007), Senator  Orji  Uzor Kalu, is holding talks with Northern leaders and key political figures in Washington,  United States of America to facilitate a grant of amnesty to detained members of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB)

A Northern leader said Kalu had been talking to him and several other Northern leaders on the need to grant amnesty to detained  members of the IPOB

The source also disclosed that it was the former Governor and former Director General of Department of State Security, Lawal Daura, with the full consent of the Federal government that secured the release of the Leader of the IPoB, Nnamdi Kanu, when he was first arrest and detention.  But Kanu could not keep to the terms of the release as he jumped bail and had been rearrested

Another source said that Kalu had been in Washington in the past three weeks where he is holding different meetings with top officials of the United States on issues concerning IPOB.

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Attempts to deconstruct the discussions with the US officials were unsuccessful. Officials have kept mute on the issue

The Federal Government is said to be considering making the intelligence gathered on Sponsorship of IPOB public.

The publication of the list which has all the transaction details between the sponsors and the IPOB was earlier discouraged as it was feared might further heighten tension in the already tension-soaked South East.

Recall that the Nigerian Government had through the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said that France was the headquarters of IPoB’s funding.

But the European country said it had no knowledge of IPoB’s presence in France.

Federal Government was reported later to have reached out to France, explaining that it did not accuse the country of being the sponsors of Biafra but that large transfers of funds were made regularly from France to IPoB in Nigeria.

The Federal Government had asked the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit and the Central Bank of Nigeria to compile the needed information on the sponsors and hand the information over to the French government.

The government will also write the Special Control Unit against Money Laundering, which is tasked with the mandate of supervising, monitoring and regulating Designated Non-Financial Institutions as regards compliance with Nigeria’s Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism.

The source said: “The French Government has reached out to us over the IPOB matter. It said we should give it detailed accounts and any other evidence showing that France was where the majority of the money was coming from.”