IPOB: Ejimakor Frowns At Kanu’s Prolonged Detention Without Trial

The special counsel for Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, Barr Aloy Ejimakor, has frowned at the continued detention of his client with trial.

Ejimakor, in a post entitled “Mazi Nnamdi Kanu: Detention and trial have time limits,” described the February 10, 2025 hearing of Kanu’s case by Justice Binta Nyako as an “infamous hearing-without-jurisdiction,” adding that Kanu’s case “was improperly off the Abuja court docket for almost five months from 24th September 2024 until 10th February 2025.”

He said, “Given the seeming unwillingness of judges in the Abuja division of the Federal High Court to handle the case, except the recused Justice Binta Nyako, the matter should be transferred to any of the Federal High Court divisions in the Southeast, “since the charges levied against Mazi Nnamdi Kanu are alleged to have either occurred in (or had an impact in) the Southeast as contrasted with Abuja.”

According to him, “This fact alone endows a far superior jurisdiction on the Federal High Court divisions located in the Southeast in line with Order 49, Rule 3 of Federal High Court Rules, Section 45 of the Federal High Court Act and the celebrated case of James Ibori vs. Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“Transferring the case to Southeast will cure the questionable institution of the case in Abuja, which was done on the wrong purport that the Terrorism Prevention and Amendment Act (an inferior legislation to the Federal High Court Act) conferred universal jurisdiction on the Abuja division of the Federal High Court. Now that the famed Abuja division has failed to rise to the occasion, it is time to abandon this fallacy once and for all.”

He further stated that should there be an official reluctance to do the lawful thing by having the case conducted in Southeast, it should be discontinued forthwith.

Quoting him, “You cannot keep Kanu in an endless limbo while he endures horrendous detention, awaiting a trial that has become a mirage and a subterfuge for incarcerating him without conviction.

“Considering that the trial has stalled to the extent that diligent and timely prosecution has hit a logjam, it will offend the Constitution to keep Mazi Nnamdi Kanu in detention awaiting a trial that will not happen in the interim and even in the foreseeable future.”

He argued that the best practices of the common law adversarial system of criminal justice “mandate that when a state has an insurmountable difficulty in putting a detainee on trial within a reasonable time, the next responsible and lawful option is to free such a detainee on bail until such a time his trial can be conducted properly and lawfully.”

He said any procedure contrary to this would amount to turning such a detainee into “a hapless victim of a false or an extrajudicial imprisonment by the State.”.

In his words, “Under the Constitution, every criminal suspect, especially a detainee, deserves to be tried within a reasonable time, not an indefinite time, and certainly not to be subjected to detention for almost four years awaiting a trial that never happens for no fault of the detainee but of the state.

“The Administration of Criminal Justice Act prescribed a speedy trial for every criminal suspect and it becomes much more urgent and compelling when such a suspect is in detention, and a lengthy one to boot.

“From the very inception of this case, the ball has been exclusively in the court of the Federal Government. Mazi Nnamdi Kanu does not possess any legal duty or the capacity whatsoever to schedule his own trial. It is those that accuse him that are constitutionally burdened with that duty and they must discharge it without inordinate delay and in strict adherence to the dictates of the Constitution.”

He said since the federal government had proved unable to bring Kanu to a proper trial within a reasonable time and in comportment with the Constitution, then the next best thing is to promptly release him through reinstatement of his improperly revoked bail or by a well-considered discontinuance of the case.

“This case, which was more political than legal from its inception ten years ago in 2015, has now dangerously morphed from a pseudo-prosecution to a clear case of indefinite persecution, such that Kanu is no longer an awaiting-trial detainee but a ranking political prisoner of the worst kind,” he wrote, adding that “it is unacceptable because detention and trial have time limits set by law.”.

Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, is being tried over alleged terrorism. He has been in detention at the headquarters of the State Security Services since 2021 when he was renditioned from Kenya to Nigeria in a manner courts have ruled violated international laws.