By Vivian Okejeme Abuja
Human rights lawyer, Barrister Christopher Chidera, has dismissed the conviction of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, as a “legal nullity built on repealed laws, non-existent offences, and an unlawful rendition that fatally undermines the entire trial.”
Speaking with journalists in Abuja on Tuesday, Chidera said the court lacked every form of jurisdiction to try or convict Kanu, insisting that any judgment delivered under such circumstances “cannot survive constitutional scrutiny.”
He said Kanu’s extraordinary rendition from Kenya, which the Supreme Court earlier described as unlawful, stripped the trial court of jurisdiction from the outset.
“The Constitution is not a suggestion — it is the supreme law,” he said. “Nigeria cannot claim to be a constitutional democracy while its courts attempt to convict a citizen who was illegally renditioned and then prosecuted under laws that do not exist. This is not advocacy. This is not politics. This is the plain truth of the law.”
Chidera argued that no valid trial could take place after Kanu was abducted across international borders in violation of domestic and international legal standards.
“You cannot abduct a man across international borders and then hope to conduct a valid trial. Jurisdiction is the lifeblood of adjudication. Once it is poisoned at the root, everything else dies with it,” he said.
He added that the conviction itself was built on laws that had ceased to exist and offences that were never properly defined.
He explained that Counts 1 to 6 were predicated on the Terrorism Prevention (Amendment) Act 2013, “a statute that has been repealed and is no longer part of Nigeria’s criminal law.”
Citing Section 36(12) of the Constitution, he said: “A repealed law is not a written law in force. A conviction under a repealed law is void. There is no exception in our jurisprudence — not for the court, not for the prosecution, not for anybody.”
Chidera also faulted Count 7, which he said relied on a “Criminal Code Act Cap C45” that does not exist in any current compendium of Nigerian laws.
He noted that the Supreme Court had earlier declared the count defective and ordered it corrected, but the prosecution and the trial court allegedly refused to comply.
“A court cannot prosecute a non-existent offence. It cannot create jurisdiction out of thin air. A judge cannot rewrite Nigeria’s laws from the bench,” he said.
He accused the court of refusing to take mandatory judicial notice of the repeal of the terrorism law as required under Section 122 of the Evidence Act, and of attempting to patch up the defect by later tying Count 7 to the Customs and Excise Management Act (CEMA), which he said had already expired under its five-year limitation period.
“This is not jurisprudence. This is confusion multiplied by illegality,” he said.
Chidera said the court lacked jurisdiction in four distinct and fatal ways: through Kanu’s unlawful rendition, reliance on a repealed law, reliance on a non-existent statute, and disobedience to a Supreme Court directive.
“In law, when jurisdiction collapses, everything else collapses with it. Nothing stands. Not the arraignment. Not the evidence. Not the conviction,” he said.
He insisted that Kanu should be released without delay. “To convict a citizen who was unlawfully renditioned, using laws that do not exist, is not merely a miscarriage of justice — it is the death of legality,” he said.
“Nigeria is better than this. Our Constitution demands better than this. And history will remember who stood for the law and who stood against it.”
