Igbo apex socio-cultural group, Ohanaeze Ndigbo has berated the Federal Government for the arrest of Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe by operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS).
The group also called for the immediate release of the senator.
DSS operatives had picked up Abaribe, the senator representing Abia South senatorial district, on Friday morning.
While the reasons for Abaribe’s arrest remain undisclosed by the agency, it is believed to be connected to the disappearance of leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu.
Abaribe, Tochukwu Uchendu and one Jewish priest, Emmanuel Shalom Ben, had stood surety for Kanu, who was facing treason charges and was released on bail by a Federal High Court in Abuja in April 2017.
Kanu’s whereabouts remain unknown since soldiers invaded his father’s home in September 2017.
But in a Friday statement, the President of Ohanaeze, Chief John Nnia Nwodo, said Abaribe did not have a hand in disappearance of Kanu and could not have envisaged that soldiers would invade his home.
He said, “The army in the name of ‘Operation Python Dance’ invaded Nnamdi’s home and destabilised normalcy there.
“It is only the security agency that can disclose Nnamdi’s whereabouts. Senator Abaribe has no capacity, nor has any surety in the circumstances to know the whereabouts of Nnamdi Kanu. What happened in Umahia was an invasion, a war of a kind.
“Nnamdi may have been killed or captured in the imbroglio or even escaped into hiding.
“The onus lies on the security forces to disclose his whereabouts. The judiciary is beginning to tow the line of the executive by throwing the law overboard in matters that affect the south-east.
“We are all equal before the law. Senator Abaribe must be released forthwith.”