Kanu Petitions World Medical Association, Alleges Health Neglect in DSS Custody

The leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, has written to the World Medical Association (WMA) to protest what he described as serious health challenges and inadequate medical attention while in the custody of the Department of State Services (DSS).

In a letter dated October 3, 2025, and signed by his international counsel, Bruce Fein, on his behalf, and addressed to the WMA President, Dr.

He stated that he has been held in solitary confinement for over four years without trial since his arrest in Nairobi, Kenya, in June 2021.

The petition, copied to the Registrar of the Federal High Court, Abuja; the DSS; the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria; and the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), described his health situation as “life-threatening.”

It appealed to the WMA to work with the NMA to ensure that Kanu receives “the highest professional standard of medical care” and that his medical team is allowed to operate “without intimidation or interference.”

Kanu further asked the WMA, either directly or through the NMA, to review alleged irregularities in his medical records while in DSS custody. The letter also called for protection for independent doctors “from any possible retaliation for providing medical care to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.”

He demanded the release of the NMA medical team’s report dated September 22, 2025, which the Federal High Court had ordered to be filed within four days, warning that any delay could “create the real danger that a replacement panel may be assembled, thereby undermining the medical truth.”

According to the letter, Kanu’s health issues began after his detention in Nairobi in June 2021. He alleged that upon his arrival at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, he was seized by masked operatives and held for eight days in a confined room, during which he was denied food, water, and medication for the first five days.

“When his body began to fail on the fifth day, a doctor was summoned. His blood pressure was dangerously high, and he was given a 40mg dose of Amlodipine along with a red-coloured liquid,” the letter stated.

Kanu said this treatment left him physically weakened by the time he was transferred to Nigeria. In the DSS facility in Abuja, blood tests reportedly revealed a critical potassium deficiency, leading to several medical prescriptions that allegedly failed to stabilize his condition.

“Whenever potassium supplements were withdrawn, MNK’s levels dropped again to the same life-threatening range,” the letter read,