By Vincent Kalu
Lawyers to the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, have tackled the federal government over his continuous detention.
In a press statement, “Mazi Nnamdi Kanu And The Emasculation Of Justice”, dated January 16, 2025, and signed by Aloy Ejimakor, Nnaemeka Ejiofor, Maxwell Opara, Jude Okey Ugwuanyi, Patrick Agazie, Mandela Umegborogu and Magnus Ikenna Nwangwu, the team of lawyers noted that the press statement is a dispassionate submission on the grueling case of “Federal Republic of Nigeria versus Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.”
The 31-page statement is divided into three parts and several sub-parts, beginning with a robust Introduction, continuing with an analysis and ending with a summary.
The statement recalled when the IPOB leader’s ordeal started about nine years ago when he was first arrested in Lagos, few days after his arrival from his base in London.
According the statement, Kanu was then charged with offences relating to his broadcasts on Radio Biafra from its location in London, emphasising that: “You can imagine what it means for someone to be on an endless trial that never really happens for almost ten years; and being detained without conviction for 18 months from 2015 to 2017 and again for over three and half years from 2021 to the present day. This alone is a grave injustice of its unique kind.
“It is also to be recalled that after Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was freed on bail, the Nigeria Army levied lethal attacks at his home in September 2017. Those attacks claimed many lives, including that of Kanu’s late parents, who later succumbed to their physical and psychological injuries emanating from the military invasion.
“In the course of time, a high court pronounced these attacks unconstitutional and awarded damages to Mazi Kanu. An African continental tribunal with jurisdiction, in a decision reached in March 2018, also condemned the military invasion and the subsequent proscription of IPOB, which was prompted by the then South-East Governors before the Federal Government drove the final nail.
“Later in time, the proscription was – by a high court – pronounced as discriminatory on the basis of ethnicity and thus unconstitutional. In the same vein, an organ of the United Nations pronounced against the proscription and equally termed it an action driven by an ethnic discrimination against the Igbo.
“Now, having survived the lethal military invasion, its horrid aftermaths and the subsequent manhunt by taking refuge abroad, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was (in June 2021) brazenly abducted or otherwise kidnapped in Kenya and extraordinarily renditioned to Nigeria in such an egregious manner that drew the condemnation of two human rights organs of the United Nations, a Federal High Court and the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
“To be sure, the Federal High Court awarded damages to Mazi Kanu and declared his continued detention at the DSS in Abuja as unconstitutional. Despite this, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is still detained to this day. That is not right and it is unconstitutional to boot.
“Be that as it may and judging from 2015 when this case began, there is a trove of evidence that suggests that the only way to correctly describe what Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has passed through for almost a decade is to say that his case (even though bereft of any merit) has turned from a trial by the constitution to a trial by ordeal. This is perverse and it will not stand.”