4 months ago
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Counsel to the detained leader of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Aloy Ejimakor, has said Supreme Court’s ruling on 15 December 2023 was enough to release Nnamdi Kanu.
Aloy said the Kanu fled away from Nigeria when he was granted bail because federal government failed in its responsibility.
He said Kanu was in custody of the law as upheld by the Supreme Court ruling and was obeying his bail condition until the invasion of his home by security agencies.
“It’s not wrong for anybody to say that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu ought to be freed on the basis of the 15th December 2023 judgment of the Supreme Court because, despite remitting the case for trial, the Court also held that 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 causing him to flee from his home and the country to secure his life,” Ejimakor wrote on his X (formerly Twitter) handle.
Ejimakor said the call by Peter Obi, a former presidential candidate of the Labour Party, for Kanu’s release was right as the court had upheld that IPOB leader’s detention was unconstitutional.
The former governor of Anambra State, in his Onitsha home, called on President Tinubu to release Kanu. Obi said the continued detention of the IPOB leader against court ruling was against the rule of law.
The IPOB leader’s counsel added that Reno Omokri’s attack on Peter Obi was malicious lie and hate campaign against Ndigbo.
Ejimakor republished the 15 December 2023 Supreme Court’s ruling on Kanu’s bail.
He wrote: “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 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 and physical well-being. 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 tun 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 bond and that his trial in his absence be ordered because he had jumped bail and is not in court to stand his trial. But they knew that their illegal actions made it impossible for the respondent to be in court for his trial.
“In a situation such as this one, where the prosecution has taken extrajudicial actions against the defendant in a pending criminal case brought by it and made it impossible for the defendant who is on bail to be in court for his or her trial, it is wrong to treat such a defendant as having jumped bail in the sense that he is running from prosecution or running to avoid prosecution in the pending criminal case in respect of which he was granted bail.
“The respondent did not intentionally and knowingly fail to appear in court. It was therefore wrong and malicious for the appellant that had cause the respondent to flee from his home and country to secure his life and that had therefore caused his unavoidable absence from court, to inform and thereby deceived the trial court that the respondent had jumped bail.
“On the basis of this deception, the appellant applied to the trial court for an order revoking the respondent’s bail, forfeiting the amount securing the bail bond of his sureties and an order issuing a bench warrant for his arrest.
“It is glaring from the record of the proceedings in the trial court that it granted the said orders prayed for by the appellant with knowledge of the fact that the respondent’s absence from court was caused by the invasion of his home by army officers of the appellant.
“Therefore, the trial court knew that the said extra judicial and illegal actions of the appellant made it impossible for the respondent to be in court for his trial, that the respondent’s absence is not intentional or deliberate absence and that the respondent is not running from prosecution or running to avoid prosecution.
“In the light of the foregoing, the trial court acted unfairly and without rational and legal justifiable basis by its decisions revoking the respondent’s bail, forfeiting the amount securing the bail bond of his sureties and its order issuing a bench warrant for his arrest.
“The orders were made on the basis of the false assumption that the respondent jumped bail. It was on the basis of the order of arrest of the respondent obtained under the false pretense that he jumped bail that his extradition or rendition from Kenya was carried out.”
English (US) ·