Supreme Court was wrong to send the case back after Nnamdi Kanu’s acquittal by Court of Appeal – Lawyer

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Following Nnamdi Kanu’s acquittal by the Court of Appeal, a lawyer named Barrister Njoku Jude Njoku has claimed that the Supreme Court erred in remitting the terrorism trial of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader.

In a statement released in Abuja, Njoku, a consultant to the Mazi Nnamdi Kanu Global Defence Consortium, a group of attorneys advocating for the IPOB leader’s freedom, made the claim.

Following the Nigerian government’s decision to close its case against Kanu, the statement follows his reluctance to enter his defense.

Kanu maintains that there is no evidence against him, and his defense team contends that his trial was void due to the Court of Appeal’s earlier acquittal on October 13, 2022.

In the statement titled “A Devastating Critique: The Nigerian Supreme Court’s Unlawful Remittal of Nnamdi Kanu’s Case, the Inviolability of Section 36(9) Immunity, and the Universal Doctrine of Finality of Appellate Discharge,”

Njoku criticized the Supreme Court’s December 15, 2025, ruling to return Kanu’s case to the Abuja Federal High Court so that the trial of the Biafra activist may continue.

Njoku claimed the ruling went against the appellate discharge doctrine of finality.

The Nigerian Constitution is higher to the Supreme Court, he said, calling the highest court’s decision constitutional perversity.

“The Supreme Court’s decision of 15 December 2023, purporting to remit a charge already extinguished by the Court of Appeal’s lawful discharge of 13 October 2022, constitutes a blatant constitutional perversity that strikes at the very foundation of the rule of law and offends the universal, inviolable Doctrine of Finality of Appellate Discharge, a bedrock principle of common-law jurisprudence recognised across the globe.

“While it is accepted that ‘the law is what the Supreme Court says it is’ in the interpretive hierarchy, this maxim yields inexorably to the supremacy of the Constitution under Sections 1(1) and 1(3), the Constitution is the supreme law, not the Supreme Court, The non-derogable immunity conferred by Section 36(9) upon a person discharged by a court of competent jurisdiction is self-executing, absolute, and beyond the reach of any judicial organ, including the apex court.

“Once the Court of Appeal pronounced discharge, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu became constitutionally untouchable for the same offences, the prosecution was extinguished at its root, and jurisdiction to retry him permanently lost (FRN v. Ifegwu (2003) 15 NWLR (Pt 842) 113 at 175, Abacha v. Fawehinmi (2000) 6 NWLR (Pt 660) 228).”

The attorney claims that the Supreme Court did not interpret the law; rather, it violated it by sending a nullified, vitiated charge without overturning the illegal rendition finding, convicting the defendant, or discovering new facts. This, in turn, violated the Doctrine of Finality of Appellate Discharge, which is unassailable in all common-law jurisdictions across the world.

The lawyer claims that the Supreme Court did not interpret the law; rather, it violated it by sending a nullified, vitiated charge without overturning the illegal rendition finding, convicting the defendant, or discovering new facts. This, in turn, violated the Doctrine of Finality of Appellate Discharge, which is unassailable in all common-law jurisdictions across the world.

Citing English legal precedents (R v. Pinfold [1843] 5 Man & G 463, R v. Green [1950] 1 All ER 786), Njoku emphasized that “the Crown is barred from retrying the same offence once an appellate court quashes a conviction or discharges.” Additionally, he cited a comparable Canadian case (R v. Riddle [1980] 1 SCR 257) to support his claim that an appellate acquittal is definitive and final.

Similarly, he used the Australian court’s decision in Davern v. Messel (1984) 155 CLR 21 to support his claim that “finality attaches immediately upon appellate discharge, the principle is immutable, an appellate discharge terminates the lis with absolute finality, no superior court may revive it without new evidence or distinct charges,”

The statement further insisted that Kanu’s trial was void due to the Court of Appeal’s October 13, 2022, ruling that cleared him.

“In Nigeria, this doctrine is constitutionally enshrined in Section 36(9) and judicially fortified (Dokubo-Asari v. FRN (2007) 12 NWLR (Pt 1048) 320 at 375, appellate discharge ‘ends the matter finally and irrevocably’), The Supreme Court’s remittal is thus not merely erroneous, it is jurisdictionally impossible, a global jurisprudential heresy, This was not judicial discretion, it was judicial overreach masquerading as appellate review,

“The ‘unless set aside by a superior court’ doctrine, properly confined to hierarchical obedience under Section 287, cannot be weaponized to pierce a constitutional immunity that operates outside and above the judicial pyramid, nor can it breach the universal finality of appellate discharge, To hold otherwise is to elevate the Supreme Court above the Constitution it swore to uphold and above the common-law world’s sacred principle of finality, rendering Section 36(9) a mere suggestion and Section 1(3) a dead letter,

“Such perverse remittal is void ab initio, constitutionally inexcusable, and an affront to the immutable principle that no court, not even the Supreme Court, may derogate from a fundamental right in clear terms, for in Nigeria and across the common-law universe, the Constitution reigns supreme, the appellate discharge is final, and Mazi Nnamdi Kanu stands immune,”

Njoku further asserted that the five-member panel that “purportedly remitted Kanu’s case committed a second constitutional abomination” by overturning African Charter jurisprudence already settled by a seven-member full constitutional bench of the Supreme Court, “an act unheard of anywhere in the world,”

“This judicial insubordination to binding constitutional precedent violates the very doctrine of stare decisis et non quieta movere (stand by what is decided), undermines institutional coherence, and collapses the hierarchical integrity of the Court itself, for no smaller bench may lawfully overrule or modify a decision of a larger constitutional panel,

“It is therefore beyond question that the December 15, 2023, remittal judgment is not only void for want of jurisdiction, but also void for judicial insurrection against both the Constitution and the African Charter jurisprudence that forms part of Nigeria’s supreme law under Section 12 and Article 1 of the Charter.”

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