Sunday, March 9, 2025 - The Chief Judge of the Federal High Court in Abuja, Justice John Tsoho, has reassigned the case of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, to a different judge.
This was disclosed by Kanu's lead counsel, Aloy Ejimakor. Kanu had
previously requested that Justice Binta Nyako recuse herself from presiding
over the seven-count terrorism charge brought against him by the Federal
Government.
While Justice Nyako stepped down and transferred the case file back to
the Chief Judge for reassignment, the file was later returned to her, a move
that Kanu strongly opposed.
On February 20, Kanu’s legal team wrote to the Chief Justice of Nigeria,
Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, seeking her interventionfor the reassignment of
the case.
In a statement released today, Ejimakor revealed that on Friday, March
7, the legal team received two official letters regarding Kanu’s case—one from
the Chief Justice of Nigeria and another from the Chief Judge.
“Yesterday, before the legal team conducted our routine visitation to
Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, we received two separate official letters regarding his case.
The letters are momentous and somewhat pyrrhic.
One letter was from the Honourable Chief Justice of Nigeria, responding
to a recent letter we had written to her, seeking her prompt administrative
intervention (as the administrative head of the Nigerian judiciary) on the
matter of a proper and lawful reassignment of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s case,
following the recusal of the judge that was conducting it.
The other letter was from the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court,
informing us that the case has been reassigned to another judge of the Federal
High Court
Upon receiving the letters, Ejimakor noted that Kanu instructed his
legal team to publicly express “sincere gratitude to the CJN for her sound
administrative discretion and the promptness with which she responded to their
request.”
He also expressed his profound appreciation to members of the general
public who publicly supported our righteous demands that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s
case be reassigned to another judge, as the law demands.
To be clear, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has always been ready to stand trial
because he is firmly convinced of his innocence. However, the perverse events
of the past six months (from September 2024, when the recusal happened) posed
significant dangers to his constitutional rights, particularly his right to a
fair and speedy hearing. It was in light of this that we resorted to taking
extraordinary measures to ensure that his case is properly reassigned and
conducted by the law.
Now that the authorities have taken the initial steps to uphold the law,
Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and his legal team will take stock and focus on zealous
preparation for his defence,” Ejimakor said
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