The leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Nnamdi
Kanu has demanded the sum of N25 billion from the Nigerian Government.
Kanu made the demand as compensation for the physical,
mental, emotional, psychological, property, and other damages suffered due to
the infringements of his fundamental rights.
The IPOB leader made the demand, among others, concerning
his arrest and extraordinary rendition from Kenya in 2021.
Recall that Kanu was rearrested in Kenya and repatriated to
Nigeria last year.
Amid the controversy surrounding Kanu’s rearrest in Kenya,
the Nigerian Government had denied involvement in the operation.
Despite the denial, Kanu’s legal team dragged the Nigerian
Government to court over how the IPOB leader was picked in Kenya.
However, the Federal High Court sitting in Umuahia, Abia
State, had fixed October 4th, 2022, for the hearing of Kanu’s extraordinary
rendition suit.
A statement signed by his Special Counsel, Aloy Ejimakor,
reads: “On 4th October 2022, the Federal High Court, Umuahia will hear Mazi
Nnamdi Kanu’s extraordinary rendition suit which I had filed before the court
in March this year.
“The suit is sui generis (of a special class), and it 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.
“In addition to the rendition, I am asking the Court to
redress the myriad violations that came with the rendition, such as the
torture, the unlawful detention and the denial of the right to fair hearing
which is required by law before anybody can be expelled from one country to the
other. I am also seeking to halt his prosecution and restore him to the status
quo before he was rendition on 19th June, 2021.”
DAILY POST reports that on 19th January 2022, the High Court
of Abia State decided that portion of the violation of Kanu’s fundamental
rights that occurred in 2017.
He added: “Even as I had made claims that bordered on
rendition, the Court declined jurisdiction on grounds that rendition, being
related to extradition, lies within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Federal
High Court. This is what informed my decision to initiate the suit before the
Federal High Court.
“To be sure, the extraordinary rendition of Nnamdi Kanu
triggered myriad legal questions that cut across multiple jurisdictions in
Nigeria and even triggered the international legal order, to boot. In other
words, the rendition has expanded the matter of Kanu far beyond the realms of
the Abuja trial and opened up new legal frontiers that must be ventilated to
the hilt before other courts and tribunals within and without Nigeria.
“Thus, this very case before the Federal High Court, Umuahia
is one of such that is aimed at seeking a definitive judicial pronouncement on
the constitutionality of the extraordinary rendition. The ones in the United
Kingdom, Kenya, African Union and the United Nations are in addition.”
The demands Ejimakor made on behalf of Kanu read below:
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.
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).
Ejimakor reiterated that the court should declare Kanu’s
arrest in Kenya as illegal, unlawful, unconstitutional, and amounts to
infringement of his fundamental right to fair hearing.
He urged the court to stop the Nigerian Government from
further prosecuting Kanu.
AN ORDER mandating and compelling 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.
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.
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.
Ejimakor further expressed hope that the IPOB leader would
soon get justice
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