Matthew Onocheta

Abuja – The illegally detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, has filed a brief at the Court of Appeal, seeking restoration of his bail revoked by the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.

Kanu in the brief filed through his legal team led by his Special counsel, Barrister Aloy Ejimakor, said that the trial court in a judgment delivered on the May 20, 2024 refused to restore/reinstate his bail “erroneously” revoked on the misrepresentations of the Nigerian government (Respondent) that he jumped bail.

The self-determination activist said that the trial court refused to restore the bail or even order home detention in spite of the affidavit evidence and the pertinent finding of the Supreme Court before the trial court.

The appeal brief stated that he while he was on bail and in compliance with the terms of bail in Afiaraukwu Ibeku, his hometown in Abia State, the Nigerian government “devised a means of unlawfully assassinating the Appellant through a lethal military operation code named ‘Operation Python Dance’ levied by the armed forces of the Respondent in the said Appellant’s hometown.

“By providence, the Appellant escaped assassination though casualties were recorded in the operation. The Appellant was later awarded One Billion Naira in damages for this military operation and the judgment was on record before the trial court and later the Supreme Court.

“In the interim, and because of Appellant’s flight to safety, the Respondent deceptively approached the trial Court for the revocation of the Appellant’s bail on the ground that the Appellant had jumped bail. The order as sought was made on the 28th day of March, 2019.

“Pursuant to the order revoking the Appellant’s bail, the Appellant was abducted by agents of the Respondents and extraordinarily renditioned from Kenya to Nigeria in June 2021 and on the 20th day of October, 2021, the erstwhile charge was amended to try the Appellant separately from others with whom the Appellant was initially charged. 

“The Respondent further amended the charge to include offences relating to terrorism, on the strength of which the Appellant filed a Notice of Preliminary Objection on the 19th day of January, 2022. 

“The validity or otherwise of the charges/counts vis-à-vis the extraordinary rendition of the Appellant was contested up to the Supreme Court and in its judgment, the Supreme Court, though allowed the appeal in favour of the Respondent, agreed with the Appellant that the rendition was unlawful and in particular- that the Appellant did not jump bail but was justified in running for his life given the circumstances of the Operation Python Dance and stated that the revocation of the Appellant’s bail was erroneous and made the impartiality of the trial Court suspicious.”

Kanu’s legal team said, “We submit that the finding of the Supreme Court as indicated above constitutes decision by which the trial Court is bound and which does not permit the trial Court to maintain that its previous finding that the Appellant jumped bail subsists, more particularly when there is no appeal by the Appellant against the said previous revocation of the Appellant’s bail by the trial Court. 

“To be sure, the said pending appeal was by the Appellant’s sureties and what they appealed against was to stop the trial court from taking the steps to forfeit their bail bonds, not that the bail bonds were already forfeited as the trial court erroneously held.”

Kanu therefore asked the appeal court to determine: “Was the trial court right to refuse the prayers for the setting aside of the order revoking Appellant’s bail and restoring the bail on the purport that the trial Court had previously found that the Appellant had jumped bail, forfeited the sureties bonds and Appellant’s sureties having been discharged and proceeded to appeal, the trial court must await the outcome of the appeal when it was brought to the attention of the trial court that the revocation of the Appellant’s bail was found by the Supreme Court of Nigeria to have been obtained by deception and made in error and when the sureties had not, in truth, forfeited their bail bonds and had not been discharged?

“Whether in the circumstances of the instant case, the trial Court rightly held that the Department of State Security detention facility is a proper or safe place of custody as against transferring the Appellant to an alternative place of detention given the affidavit evidence placed before the trial court?”

He also amongst other things, asked to appellate court to determine “That the trial court had during its previous decision revoking the Appellant’s bail, held that the Appellant had jumped bail;

“That the sureties had forfeited the sureties’ bonds and thus discharged from their bonds; and

“That the Appellant’s sureties had gone on appeal over the forfeiture of their bonds, hence the trial court must await the outcome of the appeal.”

Kanu is facing trial on terrorism charges levelled against by then-President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration over his call and agitation for a sovereign state of Biafra. Kanu was extraordinarily renditioned from Kenya in June 2021 by former President Buhari’s government and has remained in detention since then.

Mr Kanu’s initial arrest in 2015 triggered protests by his supporters.
In 2017, Justice Binta Nyako of a Federal High Court in Abuja granted Kanu bail.

Upon his release, a military invasion of his ancestral home in Umuahia, Abia State, in September 2017, forced into exile, hence he did not attend his trial on the next scheduled date and thereafter. From then till June 2021 when he was abducted from Kenya and was subjected to “extraordinary rendition”, and brought back to Nigeria, there has been a robust public debate as to whether he jumped bail or not.

But, the Appeal Court had discharged and acquitted Kanu of all terrorism charges. This judgment was later overturned by the Supreme Court which transferred the case back to the Federal High Court.

Kanu’s attorney, Aloy Ejimakor, in January, clarified that the Supreme Court had settled the controversy on whether Kanu jumped bail or not.

The attorney said the Supreme Court also clarified that Kanu’s bail “should not have been revoked”.

In the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the judgment delivered in December 2023, the apex court declared that Kanu did not jump bail.

IPOB wants a group of states in the south-east of Nigeria, which mostly comprises the Igbo ethnic group, to break away from the country and form an independent nation called Biafra.

In 1967 Igbo leaders declared independence for the state of Biafra, but after a civil war, which led to the deaths of millions of people, the self-determination movement was defeated.

But the idea of Biafra has never gone away and despite arrests of his members, Mr Kanu’s movement hasseen a recent swell in its numbers.

All peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development, according to the United Nations Charter.

Essentially, the right to self-determination is the right of a people to determine its own destiny. In particular, the principle allows a people to choose its own political status and to determine its own form of economic, cultural and social development. Exercise of this right can result in a variety of different outcomes ranging from political independence through to full integration within a state.

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