Nnamdi Kanu, the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), has requested that his case be transferred to a Federal High Court in the southeast if no judge in Abuja is willing to preside over it.
This request was disclosed by Kanu’s special counsel, Aloy Ejimakor, in a statement.
Kanu, facing terrorism charges at the Federal High Court in Abuja, has been in detention since he was controversially repatriated to Nigeria from Kenya in June 2021. His legal team has been consistently opposed to the current presiding judge, Justice Binta Nyako after Kanu accused her of bias and disobeying a Supreme Court ruling that had ordered his release on bail. As a result, Justice Nyako recused herself from the case in September 2024, but the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, John Tsoho, reassigned the case to her, prompting continued opposition from Kanu’s team.
Kanu’s legal team visited him at the State Security Service (SSS) facility on Wednesday, where he instructed them to prevent Justice Nyako from continuing to preside over his trial. Ejimakor emphasized that if the case remained with Nyako, it would imply disobedience to her own previous order of recusal.
In his statement, Ejimakor revealed that Kanu has now requested that the case be moved to any Federal High Court in the Southeast or South-south regions, such as Umuahia, Awka, Enugu, Asaba, or Port Harcourt if judges in Abuja are unwilling to hear the case. He also expressed concern over the constitutional implications of the situation.
Kanu was first arrested in 2015 under former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration. In October 2022, the Court of Appeal in Abuja ruled that Kanu’s extraordinary rendition to Nigeria was a violation of the country’s extradition treaty and his fundamental human rights. The court struck out the terrorism charges filed against him and ordered his release. However, the Nigerian government refused to release him, citing security concerns in the South-east.
In December 2023, the Supreme Court reversed the lower court’s ruling, ordered the continuation of Kanu’s trial, and directed that it proceed at the Federal High Court in Abuja.