BIAFRA: We’ll Resist Trial That Is Against Nigeria’s Constitution, Ejimakor Declares After Access Denial To Kanu

The lead counsel to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu Official, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Barrister Aloy Ejimakor, Friday, said efforts of Kanu’s legal team to interface with him ahead of his June 19 hearing are being frustrated.

Kanu is being detained at the headquarters of the State Security Services in Abuja. He is accused of terrorism and jumping bail in 2017. Nigeria’s secret security agents in collaboration with their Kenyan counterparts arrested Kanu in Nairobi and renditioned him to Nigeria in 2021.

Ejimakor raised the alarm in a release entitled, “As the hearing date draws near, the DSS continues to hinder Nnamdi Kanu’s right to fair trial”.

According to Ejimakor, “Today, being 14th June 2024, the DSS once again exhibited its vested disrespect for judicial pronouncements when it (in disobedience of court order) refused Mazi Kanu’s legal team to meet with him as a team (or together) to prepare him for the hearing/trial commencing on 19th June.”

Also Read: BIAFRA: The Rumoured Escape Of Nnamdi Kanu From DSS Detention

He claimed that DSS insisted that members of the legal team must meet with Mazi Kanu separately or leave the premises. He said the condition made Kanu’s legal team “leave the DSS facility without seeing him, a situation that will surely complicate the hearing on 19th June”.

He continued, “This latest disobedience of a subsisting court order by the DSS is symbolic of what has become an executive self-indictment of the trial that the government itself and the court insist must take place. If they do not obey a simple court order that is directly geared to giving them the trial they so much desire, why then is the Attorney General of the Federation still bent on prosecuting the case?

“Are we to believe that it is only a sham trial that they secretly desire? To be sure, it is impossible to prosecute a case without having the ingredients of a fair hearing in place.”

The legal luminary said the development was a pointer that the case against Mazi Kanu had no merit, hence the reason every avenue for a fair hearing was being blocked, adding that, “If the AGF through the DSS is apprehensive of the fell consequences of a fair trial, then they need to do the needful by discontinuing this case without further ado.”

He said Kanu and his legal team would resist any trial that was against the tenets of the constitution.