If Nnamdi Kanu Could Be Jailed For Life On No Evidence Of Funding Terrorism, Why Is Senator Shehu Buba Still Free? — Igbo Community FCT Demands Immediate Arrest And Prosecution

The Igbo Community Association in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has called on the Department of State Services (DSS) and President Bola Tinubu to immediately arrest and prosecute Senator Shehu Buba over alleged associations with wanted terrorists and terrorism financing.

The group, which claims to represent over 2.8 million Igbo residents in Abuja, expressed outrage over what it described as a double standard in the Nigerian justice system, drawing parallels between the allegations against Buba and the conviction of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader, Nnamdi Kanu.

In a press statement on Tuesday, signed by its President General, (Nze) Ikenna Ellis-Ezenekwe, and Secretary General, Mazi Chinwoke Emmanuel Onah, the association questioned why Buba, who represents Bauchi South and serves on the Senate Committee on Security and Intelligence, remains free despite reports linking him to high-profile terrorist suspects.

The group alleged that security alerts and intelligence reports handed to President Tinubu and the DSS detailed direct contact between Buba and wanted terror figures, including claims that suspects had access to his residence and received financial patronage from him.

“This silence is no longer explainable by oversight. It is beginning to look like protection — and Nigerians deserve to know why,” the statement read.

See Full Statement Below:

The Igbo Community Association of the FCT — the apex body representing over 2.8 million Igbo people resident in the Federal Capital Territory — condemns, in the strongest terms, the continued and unconscionable failure of Nigeria’s security and investigative agencies to act against Senator Shehu Buba, representing Bauchi State, and a sitting member of the Senate Committee on Security and Intelligence.

This silence is no longer explainable by oversight. It is beginning to look like protection — and Nigerians deserve to know why.

The Department of State Services (DSS) and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu have both reportedly been alerted to the security threat posed by Senator Buba’s alleged associations with known and wanted terrorists. Multiple sources close to the Senator have alleged direct contact between him and confirmed terrorist suspects, including claims that such persons have had access to his residence and have received money from him. These are not vague rumours — they are specific, serious allegations of terrorism financing against a man entrusted with oversight of the nation’s security architecture. Every day that passes without investigation is a day the Nigerian state chooses convenience over the safety of its own people.

Compare this to the treatment of Nnamdi Kanu — arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced to life imprisonment by Nigerian courts without proof that he ever funded, armed, or directed a single attack on this country. If the machinery of the Nigerian state can move with such speed and finality against Kanu on that record, it has no excuse — none — for its paralysis in the face of far more direct allegations against a sitting senator. Nigerians are entitled to ask whether justice in this country is a function of ethnicity and political access rather than evidence.

This double standard is an insult to the intelligence of every Nigerian and a direct threat to national unity. President Tinubu cannot continue to preach one Nigeria while allowing a two-tier system of justice — one for the ordinary citizen and the politically inconvenient, another for the well-connected — to fester under his watch.

We, as patriotic Nigerians committed to the security and survival of our nation, demand:

1. The immediate arrest and thorough investigation of Senator Shehu Buba by the DSS and all relevant security agencies, without further delay;

2. Full public accountability from President Tinubu’s administration on what action, if any, has been taken since the alerts it reportedly received;

3. That Senator Buba face prosecution with the same speed and severity applied to Nnamdi Kanu, should the investigation substantiate these allegations — and that he be made to answer for them inside the walls of a Nigerian correctional facility, not the chambers of the Senate.

Nigeria’s war against terrorism will remain a hollow, selective exercise until it is blind to power, position, and political office. We will not relent until Senator Shehu Buba answers to these allegations before the law.

*Signed:*

*Engr. (Nze) Ikenna Ellis-Ezenekwe*

President General, Igbo Community Association FCT

*Mazi Chinwoke Emmanuel Onah*

Secretary General, Igbo Community Association FCT