The Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, has set up a seven-member panel of medical experts to evaluate the health condition of the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu.
This was revealed on Friday by Adegboyega Awomolo, SAN, counsel to the Department of State Services, DSS, and lead prosecutor in Kanu’s ongoing terrorism trial, during the continuation of proceedings.
Awomolo explained that the Federal Government sought the involvement of the NMA in order to provide an independent and credible assessment, following conflicting reports on Kanu’s state of health.
He disclosed this while objecting to an application filed by Kanu, through his counsel, Onyechi Ikpeazu, SAN, requesting that he be transferred to the National Hospital, Abuja, for medical treatment.
According to Awomolo, Kanu’s medical complaints were not unusual and did not justify the request.
He therefore urged the court to adjourn for one week to allow the NMA panel to complete its findings and present a formal report.
Awomolo, SAN, said that a team of eminent medical experts across Nigeria has been put in place and had visited Kanu in DSS custody to ascertain the health status of the detainee.
While the DSS medical team, led by Dr. Mohammed Nasir, a medical officer with DSS, insisted that Kanu can be properly managed at their medical facilities, Kanu's private consultants, led by Professor Martin Aghaji, a retired professor of medicine, insisted that their client must be taken to the National Hospital.
Professor Aghaji, who retired from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu, based his recommendation for the National Hospital on Kanu’s deteriorating health condition.
However, the DSS, which brought in the NMA to resolve the irreconcilable differences on the medical status of the Biafra leader, alleged that Professor Aghaji’s report was exaggerated and suspicious, especially as it partly recommended some American hospitals.
Earlier, while arguing the application for the transfer of Kanu to the National Hospital, Ikpeazu, SAN, predicated the request on Professor Aghaji’s medical report that Kanu was suffering from a series of ailments that cannot be handled by DSS medical facilities.
He said Kanu would not escape and that the transfer would not pose any security challenge to the federal government-owned hospital, adding that it is in the interest of justice for Kanu to be alive to defend the terrorism charges against him.
The request was, however, vehemently opposed by the DSS lawyer, Adegboyega Awomolo, SAN, who faulted Professor Aghaji’s report.
Among other issues, the DSS lawyer said that no single medical personnel of the agency was involved in any of the tests claimed to have been carried out by Professor Aghaji.
Besides, the DSS lawyer alleged that Professor Aghaji unilaterally changed Kanu’s medication in utter disregard of the ways and methods Kanu had been treated over the past four years, adding that the report was made in bad faith to send false narratives about Kanu’s health challenges to the public.
The NMA’s independent report is being awaited, according to Awomolo in his submission to the court.
Justice James Omotosho subsequently stood down proceedings to prepare a ruling on whether Kanu should be referred to the National Hospital for treatment as sought in his application.
