According to Aloy Ejimakor, Special Counsel of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the arrested leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), the Nigerian government led by President Muhammadu Buhari owes his client three unpaid bills.
Ejimakor wrote on his Twitter account that if the government breaks the law, everyone else is invited to do the same.
He claims that the Federal High Court judgment, the UN opinion, and the 2018 international decision, all of which ordered the Nigerian government, led by President Muhammadu Buhari, to release Nnamdi Kanu and provide adequate reparations for wrongs committed against him, are the three outstanding debts.
Kanu’s Arrest: Aloy Ejimakor Provides Update On Legal Battle With Nigerian Govt
His tweet reads, “Buhari has 3 outstanding debts to #MNK & to freedom – the 2018 international Decision that remains confidential, the UN Opinion & the Federal High Court Judgment.
“If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it invites every man to become a law unto himself” – Louis Brandeis.
The extraordinary extradition of Kanu from Kenya in June 2021 was described by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR), a working group made up of academics and legal specialists who specialize in human rights issues, as “illegal, unlawful, unconstitutional extradition” in its report on July 20, 2022.
Additionally, it demanded the IPOB leader’s immediate release and compensation from the governments of Kenya and Nigeria for how he was treated.
The body also accused Nigeria and Kenya of kidnapping and relocating Kanu in the document.
Kanu’s Arrest: Aloy Ejimakor Provides Update On Legal Battle With Nigerian Govt
The Nigerian government has refused to release the IPOB leader despite a request from the UN Working Group.
The Nigerian government was mandated to send Kanu back to Kenya by a federal high court sitting in Umuahia, Abia state, on October 26, 2022.
The government was additionally ordered by the court to pay him N500 million in compensation for his illegal kidnapping and violation of his basic human rights.
Kanu contested the “agents of the federal government’s” extradition from Kenya in the lawsuit he filed through his attorney, Aloy Ejimakor.
The leader of IPOB claimed that he was taken hostage in Kenya and returned to Nigeria to face prosecution.
He suggested that the federal government ought to be compelled to produce the legal record or other evidence that served as the basis for his “abduction or extraordinary rendition.”
LATEST: Nnamdi Kanu Drags Kenya Govt To Court Over ‘Extraordinary Rendintion’
“My client remains an unlawfully expelled individual, and cannot be subjected to any trial because he was unlawfully renditioned,” Ejimakor had said.
Among several reliefs sought, Kanu prayed the court for “an order mandating and compelling the respondents to pay the sum of N25,000,000,000.00 (Twenty-Five Billion Naira) to the applicant, being monetary damages claimed by the applicant against the respondents jointly and severally for the physical, mental, emotional, psychological, property and other damages suffered by the applicant as a result of the infringements of applicant’s fundamental rights by the respondents.”
In addition, an order is requested to stop Kanu’s prosecution and put him back in his previous situation before his rendition on June 19, 2021.
Evelyn Anyadike, the presiding judge in the case, concurred with the claimant’s position and suggestion that Kanu’s extradition from Kenya without using the judicial system was a gross violation of his fundamental human rights.
The applicant claimed that he was detained, tortured, and shackled to the ground for eight days in Kenya prior to his extradition, and the court found that the respondent (the Federal Government) had failed to refute this claim.
The court issued its ruling just a week after the Abuja court of appeal dismissed Kanu’s terrorism-related charges on the grounds that he had been improperly extradited to Nigeria on October 13.
Why IPOB Is Not A Terrorist Group – Nnamdi Kanu’s Lawyer, Aloy Ejimakor
The trial court lost jurisdiction to continue Kanu’s trial after the appellant was “illegally and forcibly renditioned,” the court further ruled.
The Federal High Court ruling was still in effect even though the Federal Government of Nigeria had effectively prevented the Appeal Court judgment’s execution because it had not yet been appealed.
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