By Adadainfo
Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has filed a suit against the federal government over his alleged extraordinary rendition from Kenya to Nigeria last year.
In the suit filed by Kanu’s special counsel, Barr Aloy Ejimakor, Kanu, among others, wants the court to compel the FG to pay him N25bn as damages for his alleged extraordinary rendition. The matter will come up for hearing on Oct 4, 2022 at the Federal High Court, Umuahia.
Ejimakor told Adadainfo that, “The suit is primarily aimed at redressing the infamous unlawful expulsion or extraordinary rendition of Nnamdi Kanu, which is a clear violation of his fundamental rights under Article 12(4) of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, as well as Chapter IV of the Nigerian Constitution.”
Ejimakor further demands the court ‘to redress the myriad violations that came with the rendition, such as the torture, the unlawful detention and the alleged denial of the right to fair hearing which is required by law before anybody can be expelled from one country to the other’.
Aside the redress, the specisal counsel wants the high court to halt Kanu’s prosecution and to be restored to the status quo before he was rendition on 19th June, 2021.
Recall that on 19th January, 2022, the High Court of Abia State ruled that Kanu did not jump bail in 2017. The federal government accused Kanu of jumping bail, treason and running the Indigenous People of Biafra. His case is before Justice Binta Nyako of the FCT High Court.
The High Court of Umuahia earlier declined jurisdiction to determine Kanu’s alleged rendition, citing that it is within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Federal High Court.
The current case before the Federal High Court, Umuahia, according to Ejimakor, is to pronounce the constitutionality of the alleged extraordinary rendition.
The reliefs being sought are declarations that Kanu’s arrest in Kenya by the respondents’ agents without due process of law is arbitrary; that the detention of the applicant in a non-official secret facility in Kenya and the torture of the applicant in Kenya by the respondents’ agents is illegal; that pursuant to Article 12(4) of the Charter, the expulsion (or extraordinary rendition) of the applicant from Kenya to Nigeria by the respondents without a decision taken in accordance with the law of Kenya is illegal; that any criminal prosecution of the applicant the purpose of which the respondents unlawfully expelled the applicant from Kenya to Nigeria is illegal.”
Ejimakor is praying the court to prohibit the respondents from taking any further step in any criminal prosecution of the applicant enabled by the said unlawful expulsion of the applicant from Kenya to Nigeria; compelling the respondents to forthwith restitute or restore the applicant to his liberty, same being his state of being as of 19th June, 2021; and to thereupon repatriate the applicant to his country of lawful domicile (to wit: the United Kingdom) to await the outcome of any formal request the respondents may file before the competent authorities in Britain for the lawful extradition of the applicant to Nigeria.
Ejimakor further asks the court to compel the respondents to issue an official letter of apology to the applicant for the infringement of his fundamental rights; and publication of said Letter of Apology in three national dailies, and an order upon the respondents to pay the sum of N25bn to the applicant, being monetary damages claimed by the applicant against the respondents jointly and severally for the physical, mental, emotional, psychological, property and other damages suffered by the applicant as a result of the infringements of applicant’s fundamental rights by the respondents.
