Nnamdi Kanu moves to Appeal Court challenging Justice Nyako’s jurisdiction ruling

Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, or IPOB, traveled to the Abuja Division of the Appeal Court on Tuesday in response to the Abuja Federal High Court’s denial of his request to contest the court’s jurisdiction to hear his case.

Kanu had applied on June 19 to contest the Federal High Court, presided over by Justice Binta Nyako,’s ruling to hold his trial.

Nonetheless, Kanu filed a notice of appeal against Justice Binta Nyako’s decision with the Abuja Appeal Court via his principal attorney, Aloy Ejimakor.

According to Ejimakor’s notice submitted to the court, Justice Nyako committed a legal error and caused a severe injustice to Kanu when she stated: “The main claim in this application deals with the counts of charge the Defendant is facing. These counts of charge that this Court had retained after a considered ruling on the counts of charge dismissing 8 of the original counts. The main issue is that, if the Defendant has a problem with the counts of charge retained, the option open is appeal.”

According to Ejimakor: “Earlier today, I filed a Notice of Appeal with the Court of Appeal in Abuja against the 19th June 2024 ruling of Justice Binta Murtala-Nyako, refusing Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s application challenging the jurisdiction of the Federal High Court to subject him to trial.”

According to Ejimakor, a serious injustice was committed against the appellant when the trial court only considered one of the seven “jurisdictional” grounds mentioned in the preliminary objection. This one ground, which bordered on repealing the Terrorism Prevention Amendment Act 2013 (TPAA 2013), was the only one the court considered.

He said: “The learned trial judge erred in law and thus occasioned grave miscarriage of justice against the Appellant when the trial court refused the preliminary objection even after it held that “all the arguments of counsel may be correct but it will require the court to take evidence before it can pronounce on the arguments”.

“The trial court was right to hold that the argument of the counsel to the Appellant is well-founded or may be correct but the Honorable trial court erred and/or otherwise misdirected itself on the law when it held at the same time that the said arguments will require evidence before the trial court can make its pronouncement.

“The learned trial court erred in law when the court ignored the glaring fact that the Respondent failed woefully to contradict or deny the Affidavit evidence of the Appellant and even admitted to some of the depositions of the Appellant.

“The learned trial judge erred in law and occasioned grave miscarriage of justice against the Appellant when the trial court held that the Notice of Preliminary Objection was an abuse of judicial process and consequently struck it out.”

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