Nnamdi Kanu: Nigerian Govt abandoned appeal, time has elapsed – Defence team

A lawyer, Onyedikachi Ifedi, has declared that the Nigerian government has abandoned the appeal filed by the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu, to challenge his conviction.

Ifedi, a member of the Mazi Nnamdi Global Legal Consortium, in a statement on Tuesday, said the time for the government to file a response to the appeal had expired.

It would be recalled that Kanu’s family and members of his defence team had accused the Nigerian government of running from the courtroom after reports emerged that the appeal had not been listed for hearing. IPOB is threatening a boycott of the 2027 election in the South-East if the appeal was not listed and heard.

However, in an update on the matter, Ifedi said the government had abandoned the appeal, having failed to file a response within the stipulated time.

He said, “Nigeria has abandoned the appeal. The Federal Government filed nothing. Time expired. No brief. No substantive defence to the appeal. That silence speaks volumes.”

Offering his views on why the government, allegedly, abandoned the appeal, the lawyer said, “Because once this appeal is heard, the first question is not whether Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was guilty. It is whether the Federal High Court was ever lawfully seized of the case.”

He further claimed that Justice James Omotosho, who presided over Kanu’s trial, committed “over 150 grave errors” in the IPOB leader’s trial and conviction.

Arguing that the charge on which Kanu was prosecuted was defective, and as a result, the court lacked the jurisdiction to try him, the lawyer said, “Before a judge can convict a man, he must first have lawful authority to try him. Before he can receive evidence, he must first be lawfully seized of the case.

“Before he can take a plea, there must first be a valid criminal process before the court. On 21 March 2025, Justice James Omotosho resumed the criminal proceedings against Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. He took a plea. He proceeded with the trial. But the jurisdictional gateway had not been crossed.”

Ifedi stressed that the statutes under which Kanu was tried were not valid and subsisting laws when the Federal High Court “purported” to resume the trial on 21 March 2025.

According to him, the principal terrorism statute stated in the charge had already been repealed.

“The statutory foundation pleaded in the charge therefore failed the very threshold the Supreme Court directed the trial court to examine. That was the jurisdictional failure. The charge was dead on arrival.

“The charge invoked the Terrorism (Prevention) (Amendment) Act 2013. The Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act 2022 had already come into force on 12 May 2022 and repealed the earlier terrorism legislation.

“Therefore, on 21 March 2025, the 2013 terrorism legislation stated in the charge was no longer a subsisting terrorism statute. It is a question of the legal foundation of the charge itself and the Supreme Court had already directed the trial court to examine precisely that foundation,” he added.

Insisting that jurisdiction comes first in any legal proceeding, Ifedi declared that the Abuja Federal High Court presided by Justice Omotosho never had jurisdiction to prosecute Kanu.

“The criminal case had to come before the Federal High Court through a lawful process capable of invoking its jurisdiction. The judge did not create that process. The judge could not manufacture the missing foundation. The court could not become lawfully seized simply because it began acting as though it was,” he said.

Describing the charge against Kanu as “dead”, the lawyer stated that nothing that happened later could retrospectively make the Federal High Court lawfully seized of a case whose jurisdictional foundation had already failed.

Acknowledging that the judge took Kanu’s plea, conducted the trial, received evidence, moved through the criminal process and ultimately convicted Kanu and imposed a life sentence, Ifedi stressed, “But none of those later acts created the jurisdiction that was absent at the beginning. They came after the jurisdictional failure.”

According to him, the decisive question remains “where was the jurisdiction”.

He added, “Where is the determination that the statutes actually stated in the charge were valid and subsisting laws providing for the offences charged? There is none.”

Further faulting the trial, Ifedi argued that a perfectly conducted trial cannot cure a failure of jurisdiction.

“A thousand witnesses cannot cure it. A mountain of documents cannot cure it. Months of proceedings cannot cure it. A meticulously written judgment cannot cure it. A life sentence cannot cure it,” he added.

The lawyer pointed out that jurisdiction is the first question for the Court of Appeal to determine.

He said, “The statutory foundation pleaded in the charge was not a valid and subsisting foundation for the offences charged on 21 March 2025. That means the Federal High Court was not lawfully seized of the criminal case on that date. That means jurisdiction never attached. And that means the proceedings that followed cannot be treated as though they began upon a valid jurisdictional foundation.”