Nnamdi Kanu tried like someone already marked for prison - Defence team

The defence team of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu, has alleged that the Abuja Federal High Court presided over by Justice James Omotosho treated him as someone already marked for prison.

The Mazi Nnamdi Kanu Defence Consortium made the claim through a lawyer, Onyedikachi Ifedi, while speaking on the delay in the hearing of the appeal filed by the IPOB leader to challenge his conviction.

Kanu’s lawyers and family members have cried out that the appeal is yet to be listed for hearing at the Court of Appeal. The development had prompted IPOB to order its members to boycott the activities of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, ahead of the 2027 elections.

The defence team, which has been faulting Kanu’s conviction following the delay in the appeal, accused the judge of tyranny, alleging that he overruled the Supreme Court and refused to read the law in the course of the trial.

It noted that Kanu formally begged the court to move his trial from the repealed Terrorism Act, TPAA, 2013, to the new Terrorism Prevention and Prohibition Act, TPPA, 2022, as mandated by the compulsory transition commands in sections 97 and 98(2) of the 2022 Act, but the judge refused.

“He threw the request away with a wave of his hand, without even bothering to read what the law actually says.

“What law on earth gave a trial judge the power to refuse to read a key section of a statute when a man fighting for his life pleaded with him to follow it?

“Why would a Federal High Court judge deliberately refuse to read the plain words of a statute? Why would he dismiss a formal application begging him to follow the law?

“The real motive is painfully obvious to anyone paying attention. He treated Kanu like he didn’t count: Omotosho acted as though Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was already marked for prison, assuming basic constitutional rights didn’t apply to him,” Ifedi said, speaking on behalf of the defence team.

Ifedi argued that Kanu would not have been convicted if the judge had moved the trial from the old TPAA 2013 to the new TPPA 2022.

Alleging that the court was afraid of what he described as the ‘living law’, the lawyer said, “He refused to move the case because the new TPPA 2022 contains strict evidence rules, transparent safeguards, and clear definitions. The government’s weak, stale 2015 allegations could never survive the transparent checks of the 2022 Act.

“If the judge had followed the law and moved the trial, the charges would have collapsed and Kanu would have walked free. To guarantee a conviction, Omotosho locked the trial inside a dead law. He threw away his judicial oath just to deliver a predetermined political outcome.”

However, Ifedi argued that by, allegedly, doing the exact opposite of what the law commanded, the judge failed to secure a solid victory for the state. According to him, the fatal errors in the judgment mean that the conviction cannot survive appeal.

He particularly stressed that the judgment violated Section 36(12) of the Constitution, which stipulated that nobody in Nigeria can be convicted under a law that is not active, written, and extant.

The lawyer pointed to the rule established in Madukolu v. Nkemdilim, which stated that a judge loses all jurisdiction to hear a case when he refuses to follow a mandatory statutory instruction. “The moment Omotosho refused to move the case under Sections 97 and 98(2), he lost the legal authority to judge it,” Ifedi said.

Describing the judgment as a trap for the Court of Appeal, he declared that the appellate court cannot rewrite history.

According to him, the panel of justices of the Court of Appeal cannot pretend the judge moved the trial when the record clearly shows he refused to do so.

“You cannot rescue a conviction built in direct, open defiance of the Constitution,” he added.