Mr Kanu says he was held incommunicado and chained to a bare floor for eight days in a nondescript private facility in Kenya.

Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the pro-Biafra group, IPOB, has spoken for the first time from detention since he was arrested in Kenya and brought back to Nigeria about three weeks ago to face treason trial.

He is detained in the facility of Nigeria’s secret police, the SSS, in Abuja.

Mr Kanu’s special counsel, Aloy Ejimakor, was allowed to meet with the IPOB leader on Wednesday, inside the detention facility, where he reportedly spoke with him for about three hours.

Mr Ejimakor on Thursday morning shared what Mr Kanu told him.

“The people that abducted him said that they were told by their sponsors that Kanu was a Nigerian terrorist linked to the Islamic terrorists in Kenya, presumably Al-Shabab.

“But after several days when they discovered his true identity, they tended to treat him less badly. Despite that, they told him they felt committed to hand him over to those that hired them,” Mr Ejimakor said.