BY CHARLES IWUOHA

The defence team of Nnamdi Kanu has challenged the Nigerian government to stop running from the courtroom and face the appeal filed by the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, against his conviction.

Kanu is serving a life sentence in Sokoto Prison following his conviction on terrorism charges filed against him by the Nigerian government. The agitator has, however, filed an appeal to challenge the conviction.

The defence team, which spoke in a statement by a lawyer, Barrister Christopher Chidera, Esq, member of the Global Legal Consortium to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, on Wednesday, also backed the Okwu-Kanu family’s demand for immediate hearing of the appeal.

The family had on Tuesday disclosed that Kanu had written the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, and the President of the Court of Appeal, requesting the immediate listing and hearing of his two pending cases.

The family said Kanu's request was prompted by prolonged delays in proceedings concerning his continued detention, conviction and life sentence. It alleged that the Nigerian government has shown no willingness to join issues in the appeal.

Speaking on the issue, the defence team, through Chidera, challenged the government to appear before the court to defend Kanu’s conviction.

The lawyer said: “I fully support the Okwu-Kanu Family’s call for the immediate listing and determination of Onyendu Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s pending matters before the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal. The question is becoming embarrassingly simple: Why is the Federal Government running from the courtroom?

“Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has repeatedly asked that his matters be heard. If the Federal Government believes that his conviction is legally sound, it should come to court and defend it. There is nowhere to hide.”

He further challenged the Nigerian government to present the law under which Kanu was convicted before the Court of Appeal. He accused the government of hiding behind what he described as ‘public legal illiteracy’ in justifying the conviction.

Chidera added: “Nigerians must not be misled by the apparent simplicity of a court saying, “Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is hereby convicted,” and then pointing to a savings clause as though that ends the constitutional inquiry. The Nigerian public may understandably not be conversant with the technicalities of criminal law. But public legal illiteracy cannot become a substitute for the Constitution.

“Section 36(12) requires a criminal offence and its punishment to be prescribed by written law. The relevant question therefore cannot be avoided: What was the extant written law governing the offence and punishment at the time Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was convicted on 20 November 2025?

“Any argument that a repealed criminal law can simply become extant and subsisting merely because a savings clause has been invoked would invite an extraordinary question before the courts and, indeed, before the wider common-law world.

“The Court of Appeal will have to confront the actual statutory framework: What law was in force when the conviction was entered? What written law defined the offence? What written law prescribed the punishment?

What happened to Section 97 of the TPPA 2022, which provides for proceedings commenced under the repealed legislation to be continued and completed under the 2022 Act?

And if the answer is that a savings provision preserved the old proceedings, the next question remains: Where is the extant written law satisfying Section 36(12) under which the conviction itself was entered?

“These are not complicated questions. They are the very questions Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was asking at trial when he demanded – “show me the law”.

He now asks the Court of Appeal the same question. If the Federal Government believes the answer is favourable to it, let it come to court and give that answer. Let the Court decide.

“The Federal Government should therefore stop running from the courtroom. Come and defend the conviction. Identify the law. Explain the statutory provisions. And let the Court of Appeal determine the consequences. Without prejudging the outcome, the whole world is watching.”

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