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From Stanley Uzoaru, Owerri
The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has accused the Nigerian courts of aiding the continued detention of its leader, Nnamdi Kanu.
Spokesperson of the group, Emma Powerful, said this has kept Kanu in detention for the past two years.
He said following his extradition from Kenya, the court wrongfully ordered Kanu detained with the DSS, instead of a prison facility, which is a violation of the provisions of the Nigeria Prisons Act and the Administration of Criminal Justice Act on awaiting trial defendants. “The secrecy of this arraignment and without notice to a counsel that was well-known to the court violated Kanu’s constitutional right to counsel of his choice and the right to have his trial in public.
“Under the pertinent provisions of the Terrorism Prevention Act, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s initial detention was required to have terminated after 90 days or was subject to renewal after 90 days pursuant to written application by the prosecution. But this was not done, thus rendering illegal the entire period of his detention after the initial 90 days.
“This illegality was achieved through the instrumentality of the Federal High Court that allowed the detention to continue without a formal application and an enrolled order.
“Kanu has no case with the DSS. So, he has no business being detained by the DSS. Kanu’s case is with the Federal Republic of Nigeria, in which case he ought to be regarding as an awaiting trial inmate that should not be detained in a security agency cell but in a proper correctional facility that, by law, caters to awaiting trial inmates.
“The incessant post-rendition amendments of charges and the consequential adjournments allowed by the Federal High Court to the Nigerian government ensured that Kanu’s case stayed in the Federal High Court for too long before it ultimately landed at the Court of Appeal,” Powerful stated
“It’s not acceptable, even by the lowest standards of fairness, that it took the Court of Appeal only two weeks to undo a sound judgment that discharged Nnamdi Kanu from his long and tortuous seven years of ordeal . Recall that Kanu was first arrested and charged in 2015 and the judgment discharging him came in 2022.
“Recall also that it is the same court that discharged Kanu that quickly turned around to stay its own judgment. In effect, the court sat on appeal over its own judgment and took only two weeks to reverse itself. “When the case ended up at the Supreme Court, it was again another season of delays, not occasioned by Kanu or his defence team but by the government and the court.
“That it took well beyond a year for the Supreme Court to review what the Court of Appeal had done makes it profoundly clearer that the court, wittingly or unwittingly, abetted the extra more than one year of pre-trial detention that was given to the Nigerian government on a platter.
“Finally, on the issue of delay by the Supreme Court in transmitting Kanu’s case to the Federal High Court as it stated it will do since 15th December 2023, we are convinced that this delay is designed to ensure Kanu’s perpetual detention without trial because they have no case against him,” Powerful said.
