Proceedings In Nnamdi Kanu’s Motion For Transfer From Sokoto Prison Was A Charade – Defence Team
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Kanu is currently serving his life prison sentence at the Sokoto Correctional Centre, following his conviction on terrorism charges filed against him by the Nigerian government.
The Mazi Nnamdi Kanu Defence Consortium has responded to the dismissal of a motion filed by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader seeking a transfer from Sokoto Prison.
Kanu is currently serving his life prison sentence at the Sokoto Correctional Centre, following his conviction on terrorism charges filed against him by the Nigerian government.
A motion in which he sought transfer from the Sokoto Prison to a correctional facility in the Federal Capital Territory or its environs was on Tuesday struck out by an Abuja Federal High Court presided by Justice James Omotosho.
The motion was struck out after Demdoo Asan, a senior legal officer of the Legal Aid Council, who represented Kanu in the matter, informed the court that he wants to withdraw due to some irreconcilable issues.
Among other reasons, Asan reportedly said Kanu wanted to dictate the tune of the matter and control what counsel would say in court, a condition which he said he couldn’t accept in good faith.
However, reacting to the striking out of the motion, Kanu’s defence team described the proceedings as a charade, noting that the IPOB leader did not have access to a lawyer.
In a statement released shortly after the court ruling, Barrister Njoku Jude Njoku, on behalf of the Mazi Nnamdi Kanu Global Defense Consortium, faulted the court for assigning a lawyer from the Legal Aid Council to Kanu in the matter.
Lawyers from the Legal Aid Council, a Nigerian government agency under the Ministry of Justice, are usually assigned to persons who have no counsel to defend them in court. Kanu had earlier, before his conviction, taken personal charge of his case, opting to represent himself in court.
The defence consortium, a group of lawyers fighting for Kanu’s freedom, noted that the Legal Aid Council lawyer did not have access to Kanu for any meaningful representation in court.
“Today’s so-called “hearing” was never about justice. It was procedural theater, designed to generate headlines, manufacture false finality, and distract from the constitutional collapse already embedded in the judgment under appeal.
“A court that convicted a defendant without a valid offence-creating law in force now seeks relevance by striking out a motion filed under conditions of deliberate isolation from counsel.
“The invocation of a so-called “Legal Aid” lawyer only deepens the farce. A lawyer who has never visited Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, cannot access him in Sokoto, and does not understand the architecture of the appeal, cannot pretend to speak to the substance of what is at stake. It is a matter of public record that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu drafts his own processes precisely because the state has engineered conditions to block meaningful access to his chosen legal team. To feign ignorance of this reality is to participate in the deception,” the statement said.
The defence team further noted that Kanu’s conviction is to be challenged at the Court of Appeal.
“Striking out or not striking out changes nothing. This matter has moved irreversibly beyond the trial court. It is headed to the Court of Appeal, where the Nigerian judiciary itself will be on trial, not merely one judge.
“The appellate record is already saturated with incurable defects: want of jurisdiction, conviction under a repealed statute, abuse of savings clauses, denial of fair hearing, and the vindictive importation of “unchallenged facts” never pleaded, proved, or opened to final address,” the statement added.
Stressing that justice is not served by “spite masquerading as neutrality”, the statement noted that a court which cannot distinguish a repealed law from the strict and limited operation of a savings clause cannot salvage a conviction by what it described as “procedural gymnastics”.
Further condemning the court ruling, the statement said, “Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s continued detention in Sokoto is not an endorsement of this charade. It is a silent exposure of it. History will record that while procedural noise was being generated, the legal foundation of the conviction was already extinct.
“Today’s event did not strengthen the judgment. It weakened it further. The appeal is inevitable. The record is fixed. The law will be read properly and when that happens, Today’s “hearing” will be remembered for exactly what it was: a carefully staged facade.”
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