By CHARLES IWUOHA

A lawyer, Onyedikachi Ifedi, has said the conviction of IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu by Justice James Omotosho of the Abuja Federal High Court is haunting Nigeria’s judiciary.

Ifedi, a member of the Mazi Nnamdi Kanu Global Legal Consortium, made the assertion in Umuahia, Abia State, on Friday, pointing to the Nigerian government’s unwillingness to respond to the appeal filed by Kanu to challenge his conviction.

The lawyer insisted on Kanu and his defence team’s argument that the conviction was based on a repealed law.

Stressing that the judgment that convicted the IPOB leader is haunting the Nigerian judiciary, the lawyer warned that its implications threaten the foundation of the country’s legal system.

“The Nigerian judiciary and the Federal Government stand on the precipice of an indelible disgrace. The case of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has laid bare a constitutional crisis so profound that it threatens the very foundation of the Nigerian legal system.

“We are not speaking of technicalities. We are speaking of elementary law—the kind taught in the first year of any law faculty. And yet, the judiciary has failed the most basic test: identifying a valid law,” Ifedi said.

He insisted that a savings clause, which he said the judge relied on to convict Kanu, is not a substitute for an extant written and subsisting law.

Ifedi further alleged that the Nigerian government was in a hurry to convict Kanu by all means.

According to him, the government does not want to face the appeal because it knows the conviction cannot scrutiny.

He said: “They were in a hurry to convict. They are running from accountability. Why? Because they know the conviction cannot survive legal scrutiny. They built it on sand. And now the tide is coming wash away the fraud.”

Asking whether what he described as irregularities in Kanu’s conviction were as a result of ignorance or wickedness, he added, “If ignorance, a judge who cannot distinguish a savings clause from a penal statute—and who does not know that a repealed law is dead—has no business on the bench. The judiciary is suffering from a crisis of competence that threatens the rule of law itself.

“If wickedness, the conviction is a product of judicial malice—a deliberate, calculated effort to destroy Mazi Nnamdi Kanu by any means necessary, including the flagrant violation of the Constitution. The judiciary is no longer a temple of justice; it is a tool of political oppression.

“Either way, the judiciary cannot escape shame. The appellate courts face only three options: Uphold the conviction—openly defy the Constitution. Judicial suicide. Quash the conviction—judicial humility, but humiliation. Find a loophole—judicial acrobatics.”

However, he said upholding the conviction will expose the Supreme Court of Nigeria to public scrutiny and global embarrassment.

Warning the judiciary and the executive arms of government, the lawyer said, “You cannot destroy the Constitution to save a conviction. You cannot defy logic and dress lies as truth. You cannot point to a savings clause and call it a penal statute. Section 97 commanded: “shall be continued under this Act”— the TPPA. Section 36(12) commanded: conviction must be under a written law in force—the TPPA. Justice Omotosho ignored both. He convicted under a dead law. He defied the Constitution.

“If you cannot understand these basics, you do not deserve to sit on the bench. And if you understand them but choose to ignore them, you are not judges—you are conspirators. If you are so certain of your conviction, why are you running from your own courts? Why have you filed no response? Why do you hide from the very forum where you once rushed to destroy a man? The answer is simple: because you know the conviction cannot survive legal scrutiny.”

According to Ifedi, “A man was convicted under a law that did not exist. By a judge who knew it. In a system now running from its own courts. Justice Omotosho cited State v. Egigia to declare a repealed law dead. He then convicted under it. By his own words, his conviction is a nullity.

“Section 97 commanded the proceedings to move to the TPPA. He ignored it. Section 36(12) commanded conviction must be under a law in force. He defied it. This is not justice. This is a judicial crime. And the perpetrators will answer for it—if not in this life, then in the court of history.”

The Okwu-Kanu family had on Wednesday demand the immediate hearing of Kanu’s appeal against his conviction. The family also disclosed that the IPOB leader 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.

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