.IPOB’s counsel tasks UN on Nigeria’s sit
Special Counsel to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the detained leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), Aloy Ejimakor has stated that the Supreme Court has finally settled that his client never jumped bail, hence the bail granted him by the lower court should not have been revoked.
Insisting that Kanu did not jump bail, Ejimakor, in a statement, recalled that it was consequent upon the military invasion of his ancestral home in Umuahia, Abia State on September 2017, that forced him into exile, which made him not to attend his trial on the next scheduled date.
The lawyer stated that the first judicial confirmation that Kanu did not jump bail, “came in January 2022 when, in a landmark judgment, the High Court of Abia State declared that the said military invasion was a flagrant violation of Kanu’s constitutional rights, and consequently awarded him N1 billion in damages and public apology.”
He added that it was ultimately, on December 15, 2023, that the second and final judicial confirmation brought closure to this bail-jumping saga when the Supreme Court unequivocally ruled that Kanu never jumped bail.
Citing some parts of the judgment as delivered by the apex court, Ejimakor stated: “The respondent (Kanu) was on bail and therefore in custody of the law when his home was illegally invaded by heavily armed military officers of the appellant (FG) causing him to flee from his home and the country to secure his life.
“In the face of such an attack, it was responsible for him to flee to secure his life and physical well-being. That is what any normal and reasonable human being would do in that circumstance to preserve his life.
“It is glaring that the consequences of that attack were intended or foreseeable. This is not arguable. The appellant’s officials knew that their invasion of the respondent’s home caused him to run away to secure his life and physical well-being.
“Yet during proceedings in the pending criminal case against him, they applied that his bail be revoked, that a warrant for his arrest be issued and his sureties forfeit their respective bail bonds and that his trial in his absence be ordered because he had jumped bail and not in court to stand his trial.
“The respondent did not intentionally and knowingly fail to appear in court. They knew that their illegal actions made it impossible for the respondent to be in court for his trial. “
“It was therefore wrong and malicious for the appellant that had caused the respondent to flee from his home and country to secure his life and caused his unavoidable absence from court, to inform and thereby deceive the trial court that the respondent had jumped bail.”
In a related development, the international counsel for Kanu, Mr Bruce Fein has urged the United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres and three others to “initiate formal investigations into Nigeria’s eligibility to sit among the family of civilised nations aspiring to a rule-based international order.”
The three others, he stated, are the President, European Commission in Brussels, Belgium, Ursula Gertrude von der Leyen; King Charles III of Commonwealth of Nations, United Kingdom and chairperson, African Union with headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Azoli Assoumai.
He told them: “I am writing as international counsel for Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. He is currently arbitrarily detained in a Nigerian dungeon in precarious health and denied access to necessary medical care.”
In his letter dated January 27, 2024 and titled, “Re: Nigeria’s incorrigible lawlessness, suspension or expulsion from international bodies”, Fein alleged that credible evidence in the public domain of Nigeria’s contempt for the rule of law militates against her eligibility.
Fein recalled that the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention had declared on July 20, 2022, that Mr. Kanu’s detention was in violation of 16 jus cogens international human rights covenants hence it ordered his immediate and unconditional release and reparations.
“Nigeria has sneered at and disrespected the Working Group’s order for more than 18 months,” he claimed.
He stated that on October 1, 2020, five United Nations Human Rights experts wrote to the then President, Muhammadu Buhari protesting the summary listing of IPOB as a terrorist organisation.
“President Buhari was called to reconsider the listing, in part because peaceful advocacy for an independent Biafra is protected under international law. President Buhari ignored the letter.
“On November 10, 1995, Nigeria hanged Nobel Prize nominee, Ken Saro-Wiwa despite pleas from multiple foreign governments and human rights groups”.
Tasking his addressees to wield the big stick against Nigeria, Fein recalled that the UN suspended South Africa for its policy of apartheid in 1974.
“The African Union suspended Sudan in 2021 over a military coup. The Commonwealth suspended Nigeria in 1995 over the hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa,” he declared.
