By Adadainfo
A Federal High Court situated in Umuahia, Abia State, today, fixed October 27 2022 to rule on the suit on the alleged extraordinary rendition of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, against the federal government.
Kanu’s special counsel, Barr Aloy Ejimakor, is representing the IPOB leader. The special counsel wants the court to determine the legality of the manner Kanu was brought into Nigeria last year in violation of international laws.
Simon Enoch, Esq, representing the federal government, asked the court to dismiss the suit. According to Enoch, the suit violated court processes. He argued that the same case had been decided by the Abia State High Court, adding that Kanu had jumped bail before his re-arrest in Kenya.
Ejimakor opposed him, submitting that the Abia High Court entertained the suit on the alleged military invasion of Kanu’s house in 2017. Our correspondent reports that Kanu won the case.
Ejimakor said the current suit before the Federal High Court was on the alleged extraordinary rendition of Kanu from Kenya to Nigeria by the federal government.
He prays the court to prevail on the federal government to produce the authority through which Kanu’s extraordinary rendition was anchored.
He said, “My client remains an unlawfully expelled individual, and cannot be subjected to any trial because he was unlawfully renditioned.”
He told the court that the United Nations Commission on Human Rights had given orders to Nigerian authorities to release Kanu unconditionally, and also pay him the damages attendant to the unlawful manners he was arrssted.
The presiding judge, Justice Evelyn Anyadike, fixed October 27 to deliver judgment on the matter.
Ejimakor told newsmen that, “You cannot detain somebody you don’t have the authority to arrest.”
He defended that Kanu’s case for a referendum on Biafra was part of his fundamental right to freedom, adding that the same thing informed the ceding of a part of Eastern Nigeria to Cameroon, and part of Southern Cameroon became Nigeria respectively via plebiscite.
Below are some of the reliefs being sought by Kanu:
“1, A DECLARATION that the arrest of the Applicant in Kenya by the Respondents’ agents without due process of law is arbitrary, and the Respondents’ enforced disappearance of the Applicant for eight (8) days and their refusal to produce the Applicant before a Kenyan Court for the purpose of Applicant’s extradition is illegal, unlawful, unconstitutional and amount to infringement of the Applicant’s fundamental right against arbitrary arrest, to his personal liberty and to fair hearing as enshrined and guaranteed under the pertinent provisions of CFRN and the Charter.
“2, A DECLARATION 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, unlawful, unconstitutional and amount to infringement of the Applicant’s fundamental right against unlawful detention, torture and to fair hearing, as enshrined and guaranteed under the pertinent provisions of CFRN and the Charter).
“3, A DECLARATION 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, unlawful, unconstitutional and amounts to infringement of the Applicant’s fundamental right to fair hearing and not to be expelled from a State Party to the Charter except by virtue of a decision taken in accordance with the law, as enshrined and guaranteed under the pertinent provisions of CFRN and the Charter.
“4, A DECLARATION that any criminal prosecution of the Applicant the purpose of which the Respondents unlawfully expelled the Applicant from Kenya to Nigeria is illegal, unlawful, unconstitutional and amounts to infringement of the Applicant’s fundamental right to fair hearing, as enshrined and guaranteed under the pertinent provisions of CFRN and the Charter.
“5, AN ORDER OF INJUNCTION restraining and prohibiting 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.
“6, AN ORDER mandating and compelling the the Respondents to forthwith restitute or otherwise 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.
“7, AN ORDER mandating and compelling 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 (3) national dailies.
“8, AN ORDER mandating and compelling the Respondents to pay the sum of N25,000,000,000.00 (Twenty-Five Billion Naira) 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.”
