Stephen Ukandu, Umuahia
A United States-based pro-Igbo organisation, the Rising Sun Foundation, has backed the position of the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, that Nigerian courts lack the legitimacy to try him.
Kanu, in a fresh motion before a Federal High Court in Abuja, argued that his abduction and extraordinary rendition from Kenya were acts of illegality that invalidated his trial.
In a statement signed by Rev. Fr. Augustine Odimmegwa and Mazi Maxwell Dede, the group maintained that Nigeria forfeited any moral and legal right to prosecute Kanu after violating international law through his forceful rendition.
“He was abducted, not extradited. The law is clear — when a man is taken illegally from another country, no court in Nigeria has any right to try him,” the statement read.
The group further alleged that Kanu was being prosecuted under “a dead law,” referring to the repealed Terrorism Prevention (Amendment) Act, 2013.
“You cannot revive a repealed law to persecute someone. The Court of Appeal discharged him, yet the DSS continues to detain him in total disregard of that ruling,” the statement added.
The group expressed dismay that the Supreme Court had allowed Kanu’s retrial despite his earlier discharge and acquittal by the Court of Appeal.
“And now the Supreme Court has abandoned its own principle of finality — when a higher court says ‘discharged,’ that’s the end of the matter. But they bent the rules just to keep him trapped,” the group stated.
It further argued that Kanu’s “abduction from Kenya and forceful rendition to Nigeria amount to a gross violation of international law,” calling on Nigerians to unite against injustice.
“We are not asking for favours — we are demanding justice under the law. If one man’s rights can be trampled, no one is safe. Justice cannot survive where the law is ignored, and freedom cannot breathe when truth is buried,” the statement continued.
The group insisted that “Mazi Nnamdi Kanu should not be in detention for one more day,” describing his continued incarceration as “a shameful abuse of justice.”
According to the statement, unlawful rendition attracts “no trial,” arguing that “no valid charge exists, fair hearing has been denied, and the principle of double jeopardy breached.”
Accusing the Supreme Court of “failing in its own doctrine,” the group stressed that international law remains on Kanu’s side.
Citing the earlier judgment of the Court of Appeal, it reaffirmed that “no court in Nigeria can put Kanu to trial because he was kidnapped from Kenya and brought forcefully to Nigeria.”
