The detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPoB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has been granted honorary citizenship of the US state of Georgia and recognised as an “Outstanding Citizen” entitled to the courtesies of a goodwill ambassador.
The proclamation was issued by Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, acting on behalf of the Republican-controlled state government, and dated 16 January 2026.
It was formally presented on Friday in Milledgeville, one of Georgia’s capital cities, by State Representative Gab Okoye.
The certificate was received on Kanu’s behalf by a former Nigerian consul general to South Africa, Ambassador Uche Ajulu-Okeke.
In the proclamation, Raffensperger declared: “I do hereby proclaim Nnamdi Okwu Kanu as an Honorary Georgia Citizen,” adding that he should be “accorded every courtesy as a Goodwill Ambassador from Georgia” in his travels within the United States and abroad.
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Ajulu-Okeke described Kanu as “Africa’s most famous political prisoner and global prisoner of conscience” while accepting the honour.
Kanu, a prominent figure in the Biafra independence movement, is currently serving a life sentence at Sokoto prison following his conviction by an Abuja federal high court presided over by Justice James Omotosho.
He was found guilty of treasonable offences, charges he continues to deny.
Kanu has maintained that his trial and conviction were conducted under what he describes as a non-existent law and has indicated his intention to challenge the judgment at the Court of Appeal.
The IPoB leader was arrested in 2021 after being seized in Kenya and forcibly returned to Nigeria in an operation carried out during the administration of the late President Muhammadu Buhari.
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