A Federal High Court in Abuja heard testimony detailing how Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), allegedly smuggled a radio transmitter into Nigeria, concealed within household items, to operate Radio Biafra.
The transmitter, hidden in a 20-foot container shipped from the United Kingdom, arrived undeclared at Lagos’s Apapa Port, nestled among worn sofas and chipped kitchenware. It was transported to a compound in Ubuluisiuzor, Ihiala Local Government Area, Anambra State, where it lay hidden in a shed behind Benjamin Madubougu’s mud-brick home, shaded by swaying palm fronds.
The Department of State Services (DSS), acting on intelligence received in October 2015, secured a search warrant from Ihiala’s Chief Magistrate Court on October 28, 2015, and raided the residence. Agents uncovered the Tram 50L transmitter, two unlicensed pump action guns, 41 cartridges, laptops, stacks of Biafran currency, and marijuana, all crammed into a padlocked shed. A video, recorded during the raid, showed Kanu inspecting the equipment, his voice describing it as a “game changer” for Biafra’s cause, the words carrying across the humid Anambra evening. The container, too bulky to relocate, remained at the DSS facility in Abuja’s Presidential Villa, where Justice James Omotosho’s court inspected it on June 13, 2025, admitting it as Exhibit PWY and the transmitter as Exhibit PWZ.
Kanu, detained since his 2021 rearrest in Kenya, allegedly used the transmitter to broadcast Radio Biafra messages from London, urging South-East residents to enforce IPOB’s sit-at-home order on May 31, 2021, with threats of violence against violators. The court admitted 18 video clips and 16 audio files on a flash drive, capturing Kanu’s voice rallying supporters from Enugu’s bustling Ogbete Market to Onitsha’s bridge. Madubougu, charged separately after Kanu fled Nigeria in 2017, stated the transmitter lacked customs paperwork, with Kanu calling it a “nuclear weapon” for IPOB. The trial, adjourned to June 18, 2025, proceeded in Abuja’s fortified courtroom, with DSS agents patrolling under a heavy, overcast sky, as Kanu faced terrorism and treasonable felony charges.