NNAMDI Kanu To Appeal Life Imprisonment Judgment
Aloy Ejimakor, special counsel and former lead lawyer to the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, has confirmed that his client will immediately file an appeal against the life imprisonment and other custodial sentences handed down on Wednesday by Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court, Abuja.
The court found Kanu guilty on seven counts bordering on a treasonable felony, terrorism, and incitement to violence.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment on counts one, two, four, five, and six; twenty years without option of fine on count three; and an additional five years without option of fine on count seven. The sentences are to run concurrently.
Speaking to journalists shortly after the judgment was delivered, Ejimakor expressed strong confidence that the convictions would be overturned on appeal.
“We are heading straight to the Court of Appeal,” Ejimakor declared. “This judgment is fundamentally flawed both in law and in fact.
Several decisions of superior courts, including the Court of Appeal’s October 2022 judgment that discharged and acquitted Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, as well as the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention opinion, were either ignored or misapplied by the trial court. We are convinced that the appellate courts will correct these grave errors.”
Ejimakor further argued that the re-arrest and extraordinary rendition of Kanu from Kenya in June 2021 violated both Nigerian and international law, rendering the entire trial a nullity ab initio. “You cannot build something on nothing.
The continued prosecution of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu after his lawful discharge by the Court of Appeal and after the UN declared his detention arbitrary constitutes a blatant abuse of court process and an affront to the rule of law,” he said.
The IPOB leader, who has been in the custody of the Department of State Services (DSS) since his controversial repatriation from Kenya in 2021, listened calmly as the sentences were pronounced.
Supporters who gathered outside the court premises erupted in protest, chanting pro-Biafra songs and accusing the federal government of political persecution.
Source: PUNCH
