Biafra news. : Supreme Court Ruling On Nnamdi Kanu Violates African Charter — Lawyer

Calls IPOB Leader’s Trial ‘Judicial Mutiny

A legal practitioner, Onyedikachi Ifedi, has condemned the ongoing terrorism trial of Biafra agitator, Nnamdi Kanu, describing it as a judicial betrayal of the African Charter on human and peoples’ rights.

Kanu, who was forcefully returned to Nigeria from Kenya in 2021, is standing trial before Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court in Abuja.

But Ifedi insists the prosecution is unlawful because the African Charter, domesticated as part of Nigerian law, expressly prohibits extraordinary rendition and inhuman treatment.

In a statement on Thursday, the lawyer argued that any trial arising from Kanu’s abduction is unconstitutional, null, and contrary to binding precedent.

“To allow a prosecution tainted by kidnapping and torture to proceed against the Biafran leader is expressly forbidden by the Charter and confirmed by the larger constitutional bench of the Supreme Court of Nigeria,” he said.

Ifedi faulted the December 15, 2023 judgment of a five-man panel of the Supreme Court which ordered Kanu back for trial, insisting that a seven-man panel of the same court had earlier ruled that the illegal abduction and transfer of a person across borders without due process invalidates prosecution.

He described the ruling as a “judicial mutiny” against the Constitution and the African Charter.

“This was not merely a miscarriage of justice. It was per incuriam, delivered in ignorance of binding law, and thus a legal nullity,” he declared.

Citing the landmark decision in Abacha vs. Fawehinmi (2000), Ifedi stressed that the Supreme Court had already established the African Charter as enforceable domestic law, equal in status to constitutional provisions on fundamental rights.

By disregarding that precedent, he argued, the court undermined its own authority and went against human rights protection in Nigeria.

“The FRN vs. Kanu decision is void for failure to adhere to stare decisis and for arrogating to a five-man panel the unlawful power to overturn the decision of a seven-man constitutional bench,” he said.

He appealed to the federal government to comply with the earlier Court of Appeal judgment that discharged and acquitted Kanu on grounds of fundamental rights violations, urging that the trial be terminated to restore confidence in the rule of law.