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From Godwin Tsa, Abuja
Two pro-self-determination groups, AVID and Ambassadors for Self-Determination (Rising Sun), have urged Nigeria to learn from recent constitutional developments in the United Kingdom.
They are demanding that a referendum be enshrined as a constitutional right and that jailed IPOB leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu be evacuated for medical treatment and freed.
In a joint statement dated Oct. 21, the groups said Kanu’s call for a referendum “is not a crime,” and accused the Nigerian government of criminalising what is treated as democratic expression in Britain.
They pointed to three recent UK events. The first was the September 14 Cardiff meeting, where Scotland’s John Swinney, Wales’s Rhun ap Iorwerth and Northern Ireland’s Michelle O’Neill signed a memorandum calling on Westminster to prepare, plan and facilitate constitutional change. The second was the Scottish Parliament’s Sept. 22 vote, which agreed by 84 to 18 that Scotland is a nation with a right to decide its own future. The third was the symbolic poll in Piddington, Oxfordshire, where residents voted 285 to 26 to secede from the UK, a vote with no legal force. (Irish, Scottish, Welsh Leaders to Sign Self-Determination Pact in Cardiff )
“In every single one of these cases the British Government did not drag anyone to court for treason,” the groups said, adding that Prime Minister Andy Burnham had debated the issue rather than suppressing it.
The statement accused Nigeria of “deliberate neglect” of Kanu’s health in detention, calling it “a calculated act of cruelty.” It also faulted Britain for what it called “calculated silence” over the case of a British citizen, saying no “honest response” has followed a note verbale issued five years ago.
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It claimed the conviction “rests on no clear written law.”
The groups said Kanu’s campaign “was never for blood” but for a Nigeria of “justice, equity and true federalism,” or the freedom to leave if that proved impossible. They demanded his immediate medical evacuation, full respect for his rights and an end to his detention.
Kanu is no longer a pre-trial detainee. On Nov. 20, 2025, Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court, Abuja, convicted him on all seven terrorism-related counts and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
He is serving his sentence in a correctional centre in Sokoto State.
He filed a notice of appeal with 22 grounds on February 4, 2026, seeking to quash the conviction. As of October 2026, the Court of Appeal has not scheduled the appeal for hearing.
In July, the Court of Appeal in Abuja struck out a separate appeal in which Kanu alleged breaches of his rights to human dignity, healthcare and religion while in DSS custody, holding that it had become academic after his conviction.
The Scottish motion is a parliamentary resolution, not a mechanism for a referendum. The Cardiff memorandum is a political agreement, and Scotland and Wales lack the unilateral referendum pathways Northern Ireland has under the Good Friday Agreement. Piddington’s vote was a protest over plans to house more than 1,200 male asylum seekers at a nearby former military site.
