Nnamdi Kanu not facing treasonable felony charges — Lawyers
By Jeffrey Agbo
Leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, is not facing treasonable felony charges at the Federal High Court in Abuja, his lawyers said on Thursday.
In a statement, Kanu’s lawyer, Aloy Ejimakor, claimed on behalf of the IPOB leader’s legal team that the media have been erroneously reporting Kanu as facing treasonable felony charges.
The statement said, “First, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is not currently facing any Treasonable felony charge. The correct information is that – from 2015 to late 2021, Kanu was facing two treasonable felony charges. However, even as he was renditioned for the treasonable felony offenses, both charges were dropped by the Federal government after Kanu’s rendition from Kenya. Another charge that was dropped was the misdemeanor having to do with the defamation of former President Buhari. Thus, from 2015 to 2021, Kanu was arrested, detained, charged, prosecuted, nearly killed (in Python Dance), exiled, disappeared and infamously renditioned for charges that were all later dropped or withdrawn.
“Second, at the moment, Kanu is facing charges wholly related to broadcasts alleged to have been made in furtherance of Terrorism. This does not mean the same thing as facing charges for Kanu personally committing any physical terrorist act, as aspects of the media often mistakenly suggest. This is not semantics, as the mere uttering of words or making a broadcast is, at law, markedly different from committing an overt physical act. Suffice it to say that this is one of the obscurations that will as yet create profound complications as Kanu hankers down to defend himself against charges that carry the death penalty.
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“Third, the declaration of IPOB as a terrorist group by the Buhari administration in 2017 was not driven by any evident act of terrorism but by a discriminatory tendency which was later declared unconstitutional in a landmark judgment by the High Court of Enugu State in October 2023. It was therefore expected that the present government – being more committed to rule of law as it were – would have, pursuant to this judgment, taken administrative measures to formally de-proscribe IPOB on its own volition.
“Fourth, the judgment of the Supreme Court in December last year unequivocally exonerated Kanu from any notion of having jumped his bail in September 2017. To be sure, the Supreme Court which was made aware of the pertinent judgment of Abia State High Court of January 2022, quoted copiously from that judgment in making its determination that rather than Kanu, it is the Federal Government that is solely responsible for Kanu’s inevitable flight to exile. For this reason, the Supreme Court further determined that Kanu’s bail should not have been revoked, that it was obtained by deception and that his extraordinary rendition was a ‘criminal act’. It is therefore a dilemma and an oxymoron that those who committed grave criminal acts against Kanu are amongst those detaining and prosecuting him.”
The Court of Appeal had dismissed the terrorism and treasonable felony charges against Kanu on the ground that the Federal Government erred by extraordinarily renditioning him to Nigeria.
But the Supreme Court overturned the judgment of the appellate court, stating that the actions of the Federal Government can not render the charges or the trial a nullity.
