IPOB deplores ‘adjournments’ of Nnamdi Kanu’s case
The outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has deplored incessant adjournments of the federal government suit against its detained leader, Nnamdi Kanu.
Emma Powerful, the group’s spokesperson, said the development is a “travesty of justice” employed by the Department of State Services to prolong Kanu’s continued incarceration.
Powerful expressed “disappointment” over “the cancellation of the date earlier scheduled for the hearing of our leader’s appeal before the Supreme Court.”
He said the reason given for the adjournment was an “after-thought and flimsy.”
“To say the least, this is the worst form of travesty of justice and violent destruction of the rule of law at its epic.
“If we may ask, was it not in an open court that the justices of the Supreme Court that sat on the appeal on the 11th day of May 2023 adjourned the matter to the 14th day of September 2023?
“It is also our understanding that the 14th day of September 2023 adjournment was not granted as a matter of course.
“The adjournment date was carefully considered against the background of the federal government’s deliberate ploy to thwart the proceedings of that day by applying for time to file their papers even when they were clearly out of time, and the appeal was consequently adjourned to the 14th day of September 2023 for definite hearing.
“If the present intention of the apex court is not a rape of democracy and clear subversion of the course of justice, how could they have adjourned to the 14th day of September 2023 without being guided by their diary, which contains the entire schedule of activities and holidays of the Supreme Court for the entire year?
“The ‘stay of execution’ in a criminal trial is both criminal and unconstitutional. It is tantamount to the destruction of the tenets of criminal law jurisprudence because it is not supported by any judicial authority or extant laws or criminal practice direction of the Court of Appeal,” he said.
Powerful added, “What the Federal Government of Nigeria did was to procure a panel of the most corrupt judicial officers in the Court of Appeal to sit on an unprecedented appeal against the decision of the same court, and the criminal venture was perfected and carefully executed.
“Hence, our leader is, today, still being illegally and unconstitutionally confined to solitary confinement at the SSS dungeon in Abuja due to the illegal order of the judicial putschists.
“If the Federal Government of Nigeria is no longer interested in prosecuting their appeal, our leader should be immediately released in line with the Order of the penultimate court made on the 13th day of October 2022.”
