By Our Correspondent<\/p>\n
Unhappy with the curel treatment on Mazi Nnamdi Kanu in prison, his family has vehemently decried the persistent harassment and intimidation of Kanu\u2019s independent personal physicians by both the Department of State Services (DSS) and the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria(MDCN).<\/p>\n
The Okwu-Kanu family of Afaraukwu Umuahia, Abia State links the harassment of the physicians to the medical report they prepared after conducting an independent medical examination of Kanu when his health condition became contentious during his trial.<\/p>\n
In a statement issued on Wednesday August 5, 2026 by the spokesman, Prince Emmanuel Kanu, the Okwu-Kanu family, raised fresh alarm over an ongoing \u201csystematic harassment\u201d of Kanu\u2019s physicians for carrying out their professional duties.<\/p>\n
The family\u2019s outcry is coming on the heels of an official petition dated August 1, 2026, which Kanu sent to the Registrar of MDCN from the Sokoto Custodial Centre. He alleged that harassment and intimidation of his medical team has continued after his imprisonment and that his health condition was falsified by the Nigerian authorities to achieve their set goal.<\/p>\n
In the petition to the MDCN, the IPOB leader said: \u201cI am no longer in DSS custody. I have been convicted and transferred to Sokoto Correctional Centre under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Nigerian Correctional Service.<\/p>\n
\u201cYet, the harassment of my medical team continues unabated, suggesting a coordinated campaign that transcends agency boundaries and constitutes a grave violation of my rights and the rights of my physicians, and the rule of law\u201d.<\/p>\n
During the period Kanu was in DSS custody his health had deteriorated which necessitated the high court to issue an order on September 26, 2025 for his medical examination. It turned out that the medical report presented by the DSS before the court was at variance with the medical opinion of the independent physicians led by Emeritus Professor of Cardiothoracic surgery, Martin Aghaji.<\/p>\n
Dr Aghaji was reportedly abducted by DSS operatives in a midnight raid in July, whisked to Lagos and then to Abuja before he was released after 72 hours in custody. A member of his medical team, Dr Charles Ndukwu, is said to have been invited by MDCN, thereby harassing him over a matter that is already in court.<\/p>\n
The Okwu-Kanu family is now saying that the ongoing harassment of the independent physicians was uncalled for since the \u201ccore medical issues\u201d in the two divergent medical reports are among the issues before the Court of Appeal.<\/p>\n
The DSS was apparently piqued by the independent medical assessment which was contrary to the official medical report it had tendered in court, purportedly issued by the team of Nigerian Medical Association(NMA)<\/p>\n
According to the Okwu-Kanu family, it was the independent medical team that saved their son from near-death hence there was no basis for their harassment and intimidation by the DSS and MDCAN.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe DSS mismanaged Mazi Kanu\u2019s health and now seeks to punish the physicians who intervened,\u201d the statement said, adding that \u201cwhile in DSS custody, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu\u2019s health was systematically neglected and mismanaged\u201d.<\/p>\n
Quoting the result of the independent medical examination, Kanu\u2019s family inferred that \u201cthe state-appointed doctors allowed his potassium levels to fall to a life-threatening 1.9 mmol\/L\u2014a level capable of triggering cardiac arrest and sudden death.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis hypertension remained poorly controlled, his kidney function deteriorated to established renal impairment, and serious cardiac abnormalities\u2014including Left Ventricular Diastolic Dysfunction and Cardiac Septal Hypertrophy\u2014went untreated\u201d.<\/p>\n
The family noted that when Professor Aghaji and his independent medical team \u201cfinally gained access (to Kanu), they found a man on the brink of collapse.<\/p>\n
\u201cThrough their professional intervention, his potassium level rose from 2.1 to 2.9 mmol\/L\u2014still below safe levels, but a clear demonstration of genuine medical progress\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Okwu-Kanu family further stated that with the genuine medical improvement recorded \u201cepisodes of nosebleeds, fainting, light-headedness and swollen feet ceased\u201d, adding that Kanu\u2019s \u201cheadaches subsided to an occasional level\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe DSS did not save Mazi Nnamdi Kanu\u2019s life. His personal physicians did. Their intervention, in the family\u2019s view, prevented what had become an imminent risk of catastrophic medical deterioration.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead of being commended for this intervention, these physicians are now being harassed, intimidated and persecuted by the very agency whose medical management, according to the family, had left Mazi Kanu in a life-threatening condition\u201d.<\/p>\n
The DSS had lodged a complaint against Professor Aghaji with the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN), alleging \u201cunethical practices\u201d for adjusting medications which the independent medical team considered clinically necessary.<\/p>\n
The Kanu family considered the DSS complaint \u201cthe cruel irony\u201d because \u201cthe DSS mismanaged (Kanu\u2019s) health to the point of near-death, and now seeks to punish the doctors who rescued him\u201d.<\/p>\n
They argued that the purported medical report the DSS relied on was questionable as it was not even sanctioned by the NMA and predated the court-ordered medical examination of Kanu.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe matter concerning the court-ordered examination of 26 September 2025 is now before the Court of Appeal and is strictly sub judice.<\/p>\n
\u201cMazi Kanu is not seeking to re-litigate that issue in the petition. He is seeking only to stop the continuing harassment of his physicians and to secure access to independent medical care under the exclusive custody of the Nigerian Correctional Service,\u201d the Okwu-Kanu family stated.<\/p>\n
Accoding to the family, the harassment of Aghaji \u201cis no longer an isolated action against one physician\u201d adding that they view it as intentional efforts \u201cto silence every doctor who documented the truth and provided the care the DSS failed to provide\u201d.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Okwu-Kanu family said that they have notified the international community about the official hanky-panky with Kanu\u2019s health, saying that copies of the formal petition have been transmitted to the governments. These include the United States, the United Kingdom, and the State of Israel, as well as international human-rights organisations, and relevant Nigerian institutions<\/p>\n
Kanu\u2019s family argued that the alleged abduction of a physician and the systematic suppression of independent medical evidence raise serious concerns under international human rights standards.<\/p>\n
They backed their claims citing the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Mandela Rules) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Our Correspondent Unhappy with the curel treatment on Mazi Nnamdi Kanu in prison, his family has vehemently decried the persistent harassment and intimidation of Kanu\u2019s independent personal physicians by both the Department of State Services (DSS) and the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria(MDCN). The Okwu-Kanu family of Afaraukwu Umuahia, Abia State links the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1889,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-law-crime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16364"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16365,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16364\/revisions\/16365"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}