Nigeria’s Federal High Court sitting in Umuahia, the Abia State capital, has ordered the Nigerian government to pay the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, the sum of N500 million as damages following his illegal abduction and human rights abuse from Kenya.
The Court presided over by Justice E. N Anyadike, also ordered the Nigerian government to return Kanu to Kenya from where he was bundled to Nigeria on June 19, 2021.
The Court insisted that the extradition of Kanu from Kenya without recourse to the legal process was a flagrant abuse of his fundamental human rights.
Justice Anyadike held that the respondent failed to disprove the claims of the applicant that he was arrested, blindfolded, tortured, and chained to the ground for eight days in Kenya before his extradition to Nigeria.
The IPOB leader, through his special Counsel, Aloy Ejimakor, had approached the federal high court challenging his extradition from Kenya on June 19, 2022.
Ejimakor told the court that the suit is sui generis (of a special class) and was primarily aimed at redressing the infamous unlawful expulsion or extraordinary rendition of Kanu, which is a clear 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.
Speaking to journalists shortly after the judgment, Ejimakor said the judgment had shown that the court still remains the last hope for the common man.
He called on the federal government to obey the court order and return Kanu to Kenya.