A Federal High Court sitting in Umuahia Abia State will Tuesday hear a suit instituted by the embattled leader of Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, seeking the enforcement of his fundamental human rights.
Kanu’s lawyer, Barrister Aloy Ejimakor, told journalists that the case borders on the extraordinary rendition of his client from Kenya, contrary to international laws.
He is seeking twenty-five billion Naira as damages against the federal government.
He said; “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.
“You will recall that on 19th January 2022, the High Court of Abia State decided that portion of violation of Kanu’s fundamental rights that occurred in 2017. Even as I had made claims that bordered on rendition, the Court declined jurisdiction on the 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. 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”.
The Ohaneze Igbo Youth leaders, family members, and supporters accompanied the lawyer to court.