Kanu Sues The South East Governors And The Fg
Nnamdi Kanu, the imprisoned leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), has sued the federal government for designating the separatist group as a terrorist organization.
Aloy Ejimakor, Kanu’s special counsel, filed a lawsuit at an Enugu State High Court with the case number E/20/2023 in an effort to get the court to rule that IPOB members Kanu and others cannot be detained or prosecuted for exercising their right to self-determination since it is not a crime.
President Muhammadu Buhari, the Attorney General of the Federation, the Minister of Justice, and the governors of the South East are additional respondents in the lawsuit.
The court is requested to prevent the respondents from moving further with “any criminal prosecutions of the applicant and members of IPOB on the basis of the stated proscription of IPOB and its classification as a terrorist organisation,” Ejimakor told The Guardian yesterday.
He stated that “the suit began with an originating application brought in accordance with Order II Rules 1 and 2 of the Fundamental Rights (Enforcement Procedure) Rules 2009, Section 42 of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended), Articles 2, 3, and 19 and 20 of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights (Ratification and Enforcement Act), and under the court’s jurisdiction as preserved by Sections 6 and 46 of the Constitution of the Federal Re
Kanu, he said, argued that IPOB’s banishment and designation as a terrorist group violated Articles 2, 3, and 19 and 20 of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights (Enforcement and Ratification Act) as well as Section 42 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended. There is no scheduled hearing date.
Similar to this, Ejimakor revealed to The Guardian yesterday that he has also filed a new legal action to stop Attorney General of the Federation/Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami from continuing to assert that Kanu skipped bail in 2017.
According to Ejimakor, Kanu is requesting more remedies from the court in the aforementioned lawsuit, which was filed at the Abia State High Court in Umuahia, including N20 billion for general and exemplary damages.
Given that a court in Umuahia had determined that Kanu did not jump bail, he referred to Malami’s repeated assertions that Kanu jumped bail as libellous and defamatory.
