“All the 112 remaining IPOB women have just been discharged of all the frivolous charge filed against them by the police. Jubilation all over the places. We will take serious action against the police for the gross violation of their fundamental rights.”
That was Barrister Iheanyi Ejiofor, lawyer to the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), in a text message from Owerri, the Imo State capital, minutes ago.
The message came barely an hour after News Express broke the news of the imminent release of the women “within hours”.
The Owerri Magistrate Court, which freed the women, had on Wednesday released 15 of them.
The women, who had embarked on a peaceful protest on August 17, were arrested by the Imo State Police Command and remanded in prison custody since August 20 by Magistrate S.K. Durumba.
The discharge and acquittal followed a nolle prosequi (notice of discontinuation) filed by the Attorney General of Imo State, Barr Miletus Maduakolam Onukaogu Nlemedim, in the wake of national outrage over the ordeal of the women, who were asking for the whereabouts of IPOB Leader Nnamdi Kanu and his parents, none of whom had been seen or heard since a devastating military raid on their Umuahia residence in neighbouring Abia State.