The detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, has written to former United States President Donald Trump, calling for an independent investigation into alleged killings of Christians and Igbo people in Nigeria’s South East region.

In a letter dated November 6, 2025, and delivered to the U.S. Embassy in Abuja through his lawyer, Aloy Ejimakor, Kanu appealed to Trump to act on his recent declaration that the U.S. would “act militarily and cut aid” if Nigeria failed to safeguard its Christian population.

Kanu, who is currently in the custody of the Department of State Services (DSS), urged Trump to initiate a “U.S.-led independent inquiry into the situation of Judeo-Christians in Eastern Nigeria,” granting investigators unrestricted access to evidence, mass graves, and survivors’ accounts.

He commended Trump’s comments on religious persecution, describing them as a source of renewed hope for “millions who have been abandoned by the world.” According to Kanu, Christian and Igbo communities in the South East face what he termed an “existential threat” and require urgent international intervention.

The IPOB leader also referenced his 2022 Court of Appeal discharge and acquittal, stressing that his continued detention remains “unlawful and politically motivated.” He cited findings from the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which described his incarceration as “arbitrary imprisonment,” and accused Nigerian authorities of using state power to silence a “Judeo-Christian voice.”

Kanu further called on the U.S. Congress to convene emergency hearings on what he described as the “Igbo Christian crisis” and to consider imposing sanctions under the Magnitsky Act on individuals allegedly connected to human rights violations in the region.

He concluded his appeal by urging U.S. support for an “internationally supervised referendum on self-determination for the Igbo people,” insisting that such a process represented the only peaceful solution to the ongoing unrest in Nigeria’s South East.