A court in Nigeria drops charges against separatist leader Nnamdi Kanu, founder of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) movement for a breakaway state who was also acquitted and discharged.
Three judges of the Appeal Court on Thursday ruled that Kanu’s arrest abroad and subsequent extradition for trial over his attempt for the breakaway of southeastern regions from the rest of Nigeria has been illegal and moved to drop the charges and discharge him.
He was originally charged with 15 counts of high treason and terrorism, eight of which were dropped prior to Thursday’s ruling.
He had denied all the charges.
The court upheld the appeal of Mr. Kanu, which was filed and dated April 29 and marked CA/ABJ/CR/625/2022 for his discharge.
He was first arraigned on December 23, 2015, and was later granted bail on April 25, 2017.
The Court of Appeal declared as illegal and unlawful, the extradition of Mr. Kanu from Kenya to Nigeria and quashed the entire terrorism charges brought against him by the federal government.
Following his release on bail in 2017, Kanu had fled Nigeria to Kenya from where he was extradited in 2021.
The court held that the federal government breached all local and international laws in the forceful rendition of Kanu to Nigeria thereby making the terrorism charges against him incompetent and unlawful.
Justice Oludotun Adebola therefore voided all the charges against him.
He also proceeded to discharge Mr. Kanu from the alleged offences, stating that the failure of Nigeria to follow due process by way of his extradition was fatal to the charges against him.
His court also said the failure of the federal government to disclose where and when the alleged offences were committed rendered te charges liable to dismissal.
The ruling has brought a setback to the government’s attempt to keep Kanu behind bars over the activities of IPOB which had attracted supporters for a breakaway state of Biafra in the southeast of the country.
IPOB has been campaigning for an independent state of Biafra, which drove Nigeria into civil war between 1967 and 1970 but ended in the defeat of the secessionists led by now late Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu who eventually fled to Ivory Coast.
However, the idea of an independent Biafra had refused to die at the end of the conflict with Kanu founding IPOB as a rallying point for the Igbos of the southeast to revive hopes of seceding from the rest of Nigeria.
Following the ruling the government has said it will continue to pursue the IPOB leader with a view to nipping in the bud his secessionist agenda which threatens the disintegration of Africa’s most populous nation.
WN/as/APA