According to the legal team, the treasonable felony charges initially filed against the IPOB leader were dropped after his rendition from Kenya in June 2021.
The legal team representing the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu has clarified that the separatist leader is not currently facing any treasonable felony charge.
According to the legal team, the treasonable felony charges initially filed against the IPOB leader were dropped after his rendition from Kenya in June 2021.
A statement issued by Aloy Ejimakor, ESQ on behalf Nnamdi Kanu’s Legal Team on Thursday said the clarification was necessary because "such inaccurate publications are highly prejudicial and capable of misleading the general public".
Making clarifications in the statement titled 'Important Clarifications Regarding The Case Of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu,' for the attention of media organisations, the team said, "First, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is not currently facing any treasonable felony charge. The correct information is that - from 2015 to late 2021, Kanu was facing two treasonable felony charges. However, even as he was renditioned for the treasonable felony offenses, both charges were dropped by the Federal government after Kanu’s rendition from Kenya.
"Another charge that was dropped was the misdemeanor having to do with the defamation of former President (Muhammadu) Buhari. Thus, from 2015 to 2021, Kanu was arrested, detained, charged, prosecuted, nearly killed (in Python Dance), exiled, disappeared and infamously renditioned for charges that were all later dropped or withdrawn.
"Second, at the moment, Kanu is facing charges wholly related to broadcasts alleged to have been made in furtherance of Terrorism. This does not mean the same thing as facing charges for Kanu personally committing any physical terrorist act, as aspects of the media often mistakenly suggest.
"This is not semantics, as the mere uttering of words or making a broadcast is, at law, markedly different from committing an overt physical act. Suffice it to say that this is one of the obscurations that will as yet create profound complications as Kanu hankers down to defend himself against charges that carry the death penalty.
"Third, the declaration of IPOB as a terrorist group by the Buhari administration in 2017 was not driven by any evident act of terrorism but by a discriminatory tendency which was later declared unconstitutional in a landmark judgment by the High Court of Enugu State in October 2023.
"It was therefore expected that the present government - being more committed to rule of law as it were - would have, pursuant to this judgment, taken administrative measures to formally de-proscribe IPOB on its own volition."
Making its fourth clarification regarding Kanu's case, the legal team noted that
"the judgment of the Supreme Court in December last year unequivocally exonerated Kanu from any notion of having jumped his bail in September 2017.
"To be sure, the Supreme Court which was made aware of the pertinent judgment of Abia State High Court of January 2022, quoted copiously from that judgment in making its determination that rather than Kanu, it is the Federal Government that is solely responsible for Kanu’s inevitable flight to exile.
"For this reason, the Supreme Court further determined that Kanu’s bail should not have been revoked, that it was obtained by deception and that his extraordinary rendition was a 'criminal act.'"
"It is therefore a dilemma and an oxymoron that those who committed grave criminal acts against Kanu are amongst those detaining and prosecuting him," the statement said.
According to the lawyers, "the kernel of this whole case right from its inception in 2015 was Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s professed commitment to self determination for his people".
It further said, "In other words, Kanu is possessed of a protected political opinion Buhari’s government timidly considered criminal and thus sought to suppress it by means of punishment of some sort.
"This is exactly the reason the United Nations Human Rights Council had, in July 2022, directed for Nnamdi Kanu’s unconditional release and discontinuation of his trial.
"Other international Tribunals have also weighed-in against Kanu’s trial and his continued detention. Thus, as the trial is docketed to proceed apace, it remains to be seen if Nigeria will ultimately succeed in insulating itself from its treaty obligations."