Time for British Royalty to redress colonial evils
Nigeria a wonderful starting point for King Charles III worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize
Law Offices of Bruce Fein
300 New Jersey Avenue, N.W., Suite 900
Washington, D.C. 20001
Phone: 202-465-8728; 703-963-4968 (M)
Email: bruce@feinpoints.com
October 30, 2023
Your Majesty King Charles III
Clarence House
London, United Kingdom
Re: Illegally Detained United Kingdom citizen Nnamdi Kanu in Nigeria; Biafran independence referendum; Nobel Peace Prize
Dear Sir:
I represent United Kingdom citizen, Nnamdi Kanu. He has been illegally imprisoned by Nigerian authorities for more than two years in solitary confinement after his criminal abduction, torture, and extraordinary rendition from Nairobi, Kenya. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention determined on July 20, 2022, that Mr. Kanu’s detention violates sixteen (16) international human rights covenants and ordered his immediate and unconditional release. The Nigerian government has defied the Working Group’s injunction.
On October 26, 2023, the Enugu state high court, per Justice A. O. Onovo, declared that the Nigerian’s government’s ex parte, arbitrary listing of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) as a terrorist organization in 2017 was illegal and unconstitutional. That Nigerian court decision voided the legal predicate for the Nigerian government’s concocted criminal charges against Nnamdi Kanu, who is IPOB’s leader.
As the Bible teaches (Luke 12: 48): “To whom much is given, much will be required.”
You have been given much. Among other things, a global platform to project your views, kingship of the United Kingdom, and great wealth derived directly or indirectly from piracy, slavery, the slave trade, and plunder. During the Scramble for Africa, the British conquered territory and extracted wealth with the jingle, “Whatever happens we have got the Maxim gun and they have not.”
The 15th-century Doctrine of Discovery, which legitimized such thievery of sovereignty and resources, was repudiated by the Vatican earlier this year.
In 1914, the British Empire coerced Biafrans under a Nigerian sovereign umbrella that included culturally, historically, religiously, and politically incompatible ethnic tribes, primarily the Fulani, Hausa, and Yoruba. The forced, combustible amalgamation fit the British colonial policy of divide and conquer.
Nothing was done to diminish ethnic antagonism between the Fulani and Biafrans before Nigerian independence in 1960. The 1967-1970 Biafran civil war predictably ensued featuring genocide of millions of Biafran infants, women, and men. The United Kingdom unsparingly supplied the Nigerian government with arms to assist the genocide.
Since the civil war terminated, the Nigerian government has continued to persecute, oppress, plunder, and kill Biafrans for embracing peaceful methods to vindicate their international law right to self-determination through a referendum organized and supervised by the United Nations.
To paraphrase British poet Alexander Pope, to err is human. To acknowledge error is divine. You would deserve a Nobel Peace Prize by acknowledging the serial criminal sinning of the United Kingdom against Biafrans and championing redress of the sinning, including overtures to the Nigerian Government, the United Nations General Assembly, and the United Nations Security Council. Among other things, the redress should include the immediate and unconditional release of Nnamdi Kanu and the negotiation of procedures for a free and fair independence referendum for Biafrans similar to the referendum enjoyed by South Sudan in 2011.
A Nobel Peace Prize for you would be the high-water mark of British Royalty. The award would live and glitter for the ages—your footprints in the sands of time.
We expect that a personage of your grand stature and honor will do the right thing.
Sincerely,
Bruce Fein
International Counsel and Spokesman for Nnamdi Kanu