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From Godwin Tsa Abuja
A US-based human rights group, the Rising Sun Foundation for Justice and Human Rights, has warned that Nigeria is now in a full-blown constitutional crisis over the ongoing unconstitutional and illegal trial of detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu.
Besides, the group described the trial as a state-engineered persecution and a sustained attempt to criminalise dissent by destroying the very Constitution Nigeria claims to uphold.
Accordingly, the group called on the United States, European Union, United Kingdom, African Union, UN Human Rights Council and the International Criminal Court to intervene immediately, warning that Nigeria’s actions now threaten regional security.
In a statement by its director, Rev. Fr. Augustine Odinmegwa, yesterday, the group described the process as a decade-long judicial fraud that has placed Nigeria in serial contempt of court.
The statement issued ahead of a Federal High Court judgment scheduled for November 20 in Abuja, warned that the case may become one of the most legally disastrous judgments in modern African history.
Fr. Odinmegwa accused the Nigerian government of using the judicial system to persecute a political opponent rather than uphold the rule of law. “This is not a judicial process. It is a state-engineered persecution and a sustained attempt to criminalise dissent by destroying the very Constitution Nigeria claims to uphold.”
The foundation said that despite eight separate rulings between 2017 and 2025 in favour of Kanu, including judgments from Nigerian courts, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, and most recently, the Kenyan High Court, Nigeria has refused to comply with any of them.
“Every single ruling stands un-appealed and remains binding. Nigeria’s defiance is not accidental; it is systematic,” Odinmegwa stated.
The group said Nigeria has continued to prosecute Kanu on repealed laws, void charges and fabricated evidence while ignoring binding rulings ordering his release.
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It cited the October 13, 2022 Court of Appeal’s decision that discharged and acquitted Kanu, ruling that his rendition from Kenya made further trial unconstitutional.
The Foundation said the subsequent reversal attempt engineered through what it called ‘the Tsammani rogue panel,’ amounted to judicial conspiracy.
“You cannot use civil procedure to stay a criminal acquittal,” the group warned, pointing out that that cannot happen “not in Nigeria, not in the UK, not in the US, not anywhere in the world,” the group insisted.
It accused the Court of continuing the illegality by forcing Kanu to take pleas under repealed laws, shutting down jurisdictional objections without hearing and preparing to deliver judgment despite what it called ‘a standing constitutional bar.’
“This is not a judicial error. It is deliberate collaboration with executive misconduct.”
The group called on the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, the African Union, the UN Human Rights Council and the International Criminal Court to intervene immediately, warning that Nigeria’s actions now threaten regional security.
“Nigeria is on the brink of destroying its judiciary beyond repair. A state that refuses to obey its own courts is a state collapsing from within,” the Foundation warned.
It demanded immediate enforcement of all existing acquittals and court orders, sanctions on officials involved and an international inquiry into what it described as systemic judicial abuse.
“We stand firmly with Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the Igbo nation and every Nigerian demanding justice. The world must stand with us,” Odinmegwa said.
