A lawyer, Christopher Chidera, has alleged that various courts involved in the trial of leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu, engaged in a series of illegal acts that culminated in his conviction and life sentence. Kanu is currently serving a life sentence in Sokoto Prison after an Abuja Federal High Court convicted him on terrorism charges filed by the Nigerian government.
According to Chidera, the illegalities commenced after Kanu was discharged and charges against him quashed by the Court of Appeal on 13 October 2022. Chidera stated that from that day, every later step needed a clean legal foundation, but what followed was not a lawful trial continuing. Instead, it was one unauthorized act stacked on another until conviction and life imprisonment.
Chidera faulted the reliance on a savings clause to convict Kanu under a repealed law, arguing that while proceedings can survive repeal, the repealed penal law itself does not. He cited a pronouncement by Justice Tsammani JCA, noting that once a court has given its final decision on a matter, its job on that matter is finished. The Court of Appeal discharged Kanu and quashed the counts on 13 October 2022, and his right to immediate liberty under the Constitution attached at once.
The lawyer also faulted the Supreme Court for reviving counts in the charge sheet that were earlier quashed by the Court of Appeal. Chidera stressed that winning an appeal does not automatically mean the dead counts are alive again. A higher court may send the matter back for a fresh trial, but it cannot order "continuation" as if the old charge never died.
Furthermore, Chidera faulted the Supreme Court for allegedly treating the repealed terrorism statute — the old TPAA as "extant" and "subsisting". In 2022, a new law, the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, repealed the earlier terrorism legislation. The new Act contains savings and transitional clauses that can keep a pending process from dying with the old statute, but they cannot keep the old statute itself alive as the law that defines crime and punishment.
According to Chidera, the action of the courts violated Section 122 of the Evidence Act, which requires a court to take judicial notice of what the written law is — including the fact that a statute has been repealed. The lawyer said the pending appeal requires that the court should explain the laws relied on in framing the conviction.
Chidera insisted that the courts must show the law that brought the quashed counts back into existence, the law that made a repealed penal statute still in force, and the written law that defined the offences and the penalties on the day of conviction. The courts' actions, according to Chidera, have raised concerns about the rule of law and the protection of human rights in Nigeria.
Key points
- The courts involved in Nnamdi Kanu's trial engaged in a series of illegal acts.
- The lawyer, Christopher Chidera, faulted the reliance on a savings clause to convict Kanu under a repealed law.
- The pending appeal requires that the court should explain the laws relied on in framing the conviction.
