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From Okey Sampson, Umuahia
The leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, has sent a Christmas message from the Sokoto Correctional Centre, where he is serving a life sentence after his conviction on terrorism related charges.
This is as a lawyer, Njoku Jude Njoku, continues to pick holes with Kanu’s conviction by Justice James Omotosho, saying the imprisonment was predetermined.
According to a statement by Kanu’s brother, Prince Emmanuel Kanu, the IPOB leader, in the Christmas message, wished all men and good women of conscience a Merry Christmas.
The statement added that Kanu, in the message, thanked everyone for their prayers and wished them well this season and beyond.
Meanwhile, Njoku has continued to pick holes with the judgment delivered by Justice Omotosho against Kanu.
He noted that the most dangerous aspect of the judgment was not merely that it reached a foreordained conclusion, but that it did so by deliberately suppressing evidence he (the Judge) already admitted on record in his own court, thereby converting adjudication into a procedural façade.
“This was not an error of law or an oversight of fact; it was a calculated refusal to engage with material evidence, which evaluation would have fatally undermined the prosecution’s narrative.
“Once evidence is admitted, it binds the judge absolutely. The conduct, protest, silence or alleged boycott of the defendant (Mazi Kanu) is legally irrelevant to that obligation.
“Judgment writing is not a negotiation with the accused; it is a solitary judicial duty anchored exclusively on the evidentiary record.”
He added that a judge may reject defence evidence, but he must first confront it, evaluate it and then explain why it is rejected, stressing that silence in this regard is not neutrality but suppression.
He said had Justice Omotosho evaluated the admitted video exhibits of some prominent Nigerians, including Theophillus Danjuma, Governor Hope Uzodimma, Chief Adeola Oluwatosin Ajayi and others, he would have known that the grounds on which Kanu was convicted, did not hold water.
“These were not speculative arguments. They were admitted exhibits. Their collective evaluation would have collapsed the architecture of the conviction. That is precisely why they were ignored.
“The refusal to evaluate this evidence was not accidental. It was not procedural; it was outcome-driven. Justice Omotosho ignored them because he was operating under an overriding imperative to convict by all means, regardless of the evidentiary record. This is the gravest danger such a judgment poses: it signals to the judiciary that evidence may be admitted, buried, and erased at the judgment stage without consequence.”
He said more disturbing in the matter was the silence of major international media organisations, none of which he said had asked the most basic question any law student would pose, “Why did the court ignore defence evidence it had itself admitted?”
He said reproducing the conclusions of the judgment without interrogating its evidentiary omissions, made the media houses become unwitting accomplices in what he described as laundering of judicial misconduct.
