The court declared that self-determination was not a crime, and therefore, cannot be used as a basis to arrest, detain and prosecute Nnamdi Kanu.
A state High Court in Enugu, on Thursday, ruled as unlawful the 2017 proscription of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) which led to the separatist group being declared a terrorist organisation by the Nigerian government.
The judge, A.O. Onovo, in his judgment, declared that the reliance on the country’s Terrorism Prevention Act and the administrative action of the South-east Governors’ Forum and the federal government to pro 39mscribe IPOB contravened Section 42 of the Nigerian Constitution which prohibits discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, according to a statement from Aloy Ejimakor, a special counsel to Nnamdi Kanu and IPOB.
The IPOB leader, Mr Kanu, filed the suit in January 2023 against the Nigerian government and the South-East Governors’ Forum.
Other respondents were the President of Nigeria, the Attorney General of the Federation, and the Governor of Ebonyi State.
Mr Ejimakor and five other lawyers represented Mr Kanu, while the respondents were represented by Simon Enoch.
Justice Onovo ruled that the proscription of IPOB was also a violation of Mr Kanu’s fundamental rights as enshrined under Articles 2,3,19 and 20 of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights (Enforcement and Ratification) Act.
The court, which ordered the Nigerian government to publicly apologise to Mr Kanu, declared that self-determination was not a crime, and therefore, cannot be used as a basis to arrest, detain and prosecute the IPOB leader.
It ordered the federal government and the other respondents to jointly pay Mr Kanu N8 billion as damages for the physical, mental, emotional, psychological, property and other damages he suffered as a result of the infringements of his fundamental rights.
The Nigerian government has repeatedly accused IPOB of being responsible for the frequent attacks in the South-east region which have led to the loss of several lives and destruction of property but the group has denied the accusation.
Mr Kanu, accused of terrorism, is being detained by Nigeria’s secret police, SSS, in Abuja, while the country’s security agencies, including the army, continue to clamp down on suspected IPOB members in the South-east.
‘Landmark victory’
Mr Ejimakor told reporters outside the courtroom that the court judgment was a landmark victory for Mr Kanu and IPOB.
“We didn’t come to court to contest the judicial proscription, it’s a different matter altogether, but the executive action taken before the judicial decision because such actions are prohibited under Section 42 of the Nigerian Constitution,” he said.
The lawyer said that IPOB caters for the interest of the Igboland, and that the government singled it out for proscription.
“There is a proliferation of ethnic organisations, some of them are very evidently violent. But the federal government never took any step at all to either proscribe any one of them or to declare any one of them a terrorist group, but it took these proactive steps, supported by South-east governors, in targeting IPOB particularly.
“You can make this allegation in the media and beer parlours but if you don’t take them to court to be adjudicated, they remain mere allegations. So we decided to test the wrongness or rightness of this action taken against IPOB in court. And we did, and we prevailed today to the glory of God,” he said.
Mr Enoch, the lawyer to the respondents, declined comment on the development when PREMIUM TIMES contacted him.
“I don’t have a copy of the court judgment, so I don’t have any authorisation to speak on it,” he said.