The Mazi Nnamdi Kanu Global Defence Consortium has declared that the Abuja Federal High Court ruling that sentenced the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, to life imprisonment cannot survive appeal.
It is expected that Kanu’s lawyers will file an appeal to
challenge the judgment passed by Justice James Omotosho.
Kanu was scheduled to be moved by the management of Sokoto
Prison, where he is serving the sentence, to the Abuja Federal High Court for
an appeal records settlement on November 28 but the court did not issue a
warrant for his movement.
However, in a statement on Monday ahead of the formal filing
of the appeal, Kanu’s defence team explained why the judgment will not survive
an appeal.
Speaking on behalf of the Mazi Nnamdi Kanu Global Defence
Consortium, a lawyer, Barrister Christopher Chidera, described Justice
Omotosho’s reliance on a repealed law in the conviction as “legally
impossible”.
The defence team cited Supreme Court cases to sustain the
argument that the judgment cannot stand.
“To understand how indefensible Justice Omotosho’s approach
is, one must look at what the Supreme Court has consistently held for over four
decades – once a law is repealed, it becomes dead, extinct, and of no legal
effect. It cannot be the foundation of a charge, trial, or conviction. This
principle is not controversial. It’s not subject to judicial “assumption
without conceding”. It is black-letter law, affirmed repeatedly by the Supreme
Court,” it said.
Listing Supreme Court rulings that vaporizes Justice
Omotosho’s approach, the statement pointed to AG Lagos State v. Dosunmu (1989),
noting that a repealed law ceases to exist in the eyes of the law.
“In AG Lagos State v. Dosunmu, the Supreme Court stressed
that when a statute is repealed, it is as if it never existed. No right, no
liability, and no trial can be founded on a repealed statute unless expressly
preserved by a savings clause. This directly supports Kanu’s objection. TPPA
2022 repealed TPAA 2013. But Section 97 requires a migration of all pending
charges. TPAA 2013 was not preserved for criminal trials. Justice Omotosho
ignored this, contrary to Dosunmu,” the statement said.
Further citing Uwaifo v. Attorney-General of Bendel State,
the defence team held that a court that applies a repealed law acts without
jurisdiction.
It added, “In Uwaifo v AG Bendel State, the Supreme Court
held that a repealed statute cannot confer jurisdiction. Any proceeding
conducted under a repealed law is a nullity. A judge must take judicial notice
of the current state of the law.
“This is exactly the scenario in Justice Omotosho’s
courtroom. The 2022 TPPA was the extant law. The 2013 TPAA was extinct. Failure
to take judicial notice of the repeal is a jurisdictional defect. Again, this
is precisely why Kanu repeatedly said – “My Lord, show me the law.” Because the
law Omotosho was applying no longer existed.”
Further faulting the conviction, the defence team noted that
no Nigerian court can apply the 1979 Constitution to decide a modern case, rely
on military era decrees as if they were still operative, or conduct a criminal
trial under the Criminal Procedure Act (CPA) because those instruments have
been replaced by newer ones.
“If no judge can resurrect the 1979 Constitution, if no
judge can revive military decrees, if no judge can use the CPA today to run a
criminal trial, then no judge can use TPAA 2013 to try or convict anybody after
TPPA 2022 came into force.
“By refusing to apply TPPA 2022, Justice Omotosho acted without a legal foundation, ignored mandatory statutory transition clauses, violated Section 122 of the Evidence Act (judicial notice), contradicted binding Supreme Court authority, and operated ultra vires, without jurisdiction. This is why every authority — including Dosunmu and Uwaifo — makes Omotosho’s approach insupportable. The unavoidable outcome is the trial collapses automatically.
“Once a trial is shown to have been conducted under a
repealed statute the foundation is gone, jurisdiction evaporates, the entire
trial becomes a nullity, the conviction cannot stand,
and appellate courts have no choice but to set it aside. And
that is why the entire trial cannot stand.”
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