United States President Donald Trump has been petitioned over the continued detention of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPoB) leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.
The petition by pro-Igbo groups in the diaspora, dated August 28, 2025, was submitted through Kanu’s international counsel, Bruce Fein, on behalf of the American Veterans of Igbo Descent (AVID), Rising Sun Charities Organization, and Ambassadors for Self-Determination.
It urged President Trump to impose sanctions on five Nigerian jurists and a former Attorney General under the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari, citing their alleged roles in Kanu’s ordeal.
The petitioners accused the officials of complicity in violations of international law, including Kanu’s alleged abduction, extraordinary rendition, prolonged detention, and prosecution. They called on Trump to invoke the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act and Executive Order 13818 to hold the individuals accountable.
According to the groups, the charges against the jurists range from endorsing arbitrary detention and denying Kanu’s right to counsel and medical care, to sanctioning the proscription of IPOB through ex parte orders without due process.
“Nigerian justices and the former Attorney General deserve Global Magnitsky sanctions for violating Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s internationally recognized human rights in defense of free speech, association, and fair trial,” the petition read.
The organizations further argued that international conventions were grossly abused by the Nigerian judicial officers involved. They cited precedents where the United States had sanctioned foreign judges for human rights violations, including Russia’s Olesya Fedoseeva, penalized in December 2024 over the detention of Moscow city councillor Alexi Gorniov.
The petition also condemned the invasion of Kanu’s Umuahia residence in 2015, which led to the death of several Biafran agitators, and maintained that Kanu’s demand for a referendum on self-determination was within his rights under international law.