Geoffrey Anyanwu, Awka
Leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, has described the bench warrant issued him by Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court Abuja, as mere academic exercise.
Kanu said even the international and diplomatic community would ignore the warrant, more so, when the diplomatic community has voiced its disapproval of what is happening to IPOB in Nigeria.
In a broadcast monitored in Awka, the IPOB leader said, “Justice Binta Nyako’s bench warrant against me makes the judiciary complicit in the persecution of innocent people and IPOB since mid-2015.
“Where a case is for hearing, the trial judge must hear the motion and adjourn for any other process. On no account should he hear a motion and the merits of the matter, not to talk about delivering judgment. He may consider doing that in the very rare circumstance of consent by parties.
“When a matter has been adjourned for a particular purpose, it is my view that the business of the court on the day the matter is adjourned is the purpose for which it was adjourned.
“It is expected that parties have come prepared for that purpose for which the matter was adjourned. If it is expedient to change the purpose, it cannot be done by the court as the parties must agree.
“…The bench warrant against me is merely academic. It will surely be ignored by an international legal and diplomatic order that has voiced its disapproval of what is happening to IPOB in Nigeria.”
On his sureties, he said he remained eternally grateful to them for standing by him all through his travails, trials and tribulations, stressing that for Justice Nyako handling his case to claim that his sureties had withdrawn their surety, smacked of judicial persecution.