Barrister Aloy Ejimakor, former lead counsel to Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader Nnamdi Kanu, has detailed why his legal team firmly opposed the terrorism-related trial of the activist while he headed the defence.
In a statement titled “Mazi Nnamdi Kanu: Why I opposed trial when I was lead counsel,” Ejimakor said the Federal High Court lacked jurisdiction over offences allegedly committed through broadcasts made while Kanu was outside Nigeria. The charges covered the period 2018 to 2021, when Kanu was known to be in Britain or Kenya.
Ejimakor noted that the Terrorism Prevention (Amendment) Act 2013 had granted the Federal High Court extraterritorial jurisdiction over certain offences committed abroad, regardless of whether those acts were criminal in the foreign country. That law was replaced by the Terrorism Prevention and Prohibition Act 2022, which introduced a key requirement: an act committed outside Nigeria must also constitute an offence under the law of the foreign state where it occurred. This is known as the doctrine of double criminality.
The charges, he argued, failed to state the foreign location of the broadcasts. Without that information, the court could not determine whether the alleged conduct was criminal under British or Kenyan law. Identifying the location was not a minor technicality but a critical element of the offence, Ejimakor said. Had Britain or Kenya been named and the court found the broadcasts were not crimes in those countries, the Federal High Court would have had no jurisdiction to proceed, even if the acts were considered offences in Nigeria.
The defence raised the jurisdictional objection when the trial resumed before Justice Binta Murtala-Nyako in February 2024, shortly after Ejimakor became lead counsel. The judge rejected the objections. The team then appealed to the Court of Appeal and sought an indefinite suspension of the trial pending resolution of the issue.
Ejimakor questioned why prosecutors did not simply amend the charges to include the foreign countries. He suggested the government may have reviewed British and Kenyan laws and found that such broadcasts are not criminal offences there. Naming those countries, he claimed, would have undermined the court’s jurisdiction.
The legal dispute continued until the case was transferred from Justice Murtala-Nyako in March 2025 and reassigned to Justice James Omotosho. Ejimakor’s tenure as lead counsel ended after the transfer, when Kanu appointed another lawyer.
Ejimakor linked the argument to Kanu’s reported challenge to the court to “show me the law,” adding that the same questions could form the basis for an appeal against any conviction.
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