Today, October 26, Justice E.N. Anyadike of a Federal High Court sitting in Umuahia, the capital of Abia State, ordered the federal government to send Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, back to Kenya, where he was extradited, and to pay him N500 million in damages for his wrongful kidnapping and violation of Kenyan human rights.
Recall that on June 19, 2021, Kanu was returned to Nigeria from Kenya.
Kanu was extradited from Kenya without going through the proper channels, according to the court presided over by Justice E. N. Anyadike, and this was a gross violation of his basic human rights.
On June 19, 2022, Kanu filed a court petition opposing his extradition from Kenya through his attorney, Aloy Ejimakor. The infamous unlawful expulsion or extraordinary rendition of Kanu, which is a blatant violation of his fundamental rights under Article 12(4) of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights as well as Chapter IV of the Nigerian Constitution, is the main focus of the lawsuit, according to Ejimakor, who also told the court that it is sui generis (of a special class).
‘In addition to the rendition, I am asking the Court to redress the myriad violations that came with the rendition, such as the torture, the unlawful detention and the denial of the right to fair hearing which is required by law before anybody can be expelled from one country to the other.
I am also seeking to halt his prosecution and restore him to the status quo before his rendition on 19th June 2021.
You will recall that on January 19, 2022, the High Court of Abia State decided that portion of violation of Kanu’s fundamental rights that occurred in 2017. Even as I had made claims that bordered on rendition, the Court declined jurisdiction on grounds that rendition, being related to extradition, lies within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Federal High Court. This is what informed my decision to initiate the suit before the Federal High Court.
To be sure, the extraordinary rendition of Nnamdi Kanu, triggered myriad legal questions that cut across multiple jurisdictions in Nigeria and even triggered the international legal order, to boot. In other words, the rendition has expanded the matter of Kanu far beyond the realms of the Abuja trial and opened up new legal frontiers that must be ventilated to the hilt before other courts and tribunals within and without Nigeria.
Thus, this very case before the Federal High Court in Umuahia is one of such that is aimed at seeking a definitive judicial pronouncement on the constitutionality of the extraordinary rendition. The ones in the United Kingdom, Kenya, African Union, and the United Nations are in addition”.
He suggested that the federal government ought to be compelled to produce the legal record or other evidence that served as the basis for his “abduction or extraordinary rendition.” Kanu, through his attorney, asked the court for “an order mandating and compelling the respondents to pay the applicant the sum of N25,000,000,000.00 (Twenty-Five Billion Naira) as monetary damages claimed by the applicant against the respondents jointly and severally for the physical, mental, emotional, psychological, property and other damages suffered by the applicant as a result of the infringements of applicant’s fundamental rigor.” This was one of many reliefs sought.
The presiding court made a judgement on the case and stated that Kanu’s extradition from Kenya without using the judicial system was a flagrant violation of his fundamental human rights. Additionally, she decided that the respondent had failed to refute the applicant’s accusations that he had been detained, tortured, and shackled to the ground for eight days in Kenya prior to his extradition.
This decision was made just a week after Kanu was exonerated of terrorism-related charges by the Abuja court of appeal on the grounds that he had been unjustly extradited to Nigeria.
