The Directorate of Legal Affairs, Research and Global Communications of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has asked the Federal Government to stop prosecuting its leader, Nnamdi Kanu, with outdated laws and prejudicial narratives.

It alleged that charges filed against Kanu were under laws repealed in 2022, adding that Nigeria’s Terrorism (Prevention) Act 2013 was no longer in force.

A statement from the directorate, signed by one of the counsels, Onyekachi Ifedi, said that despite over four years of trial and multiple amended charges, the Federal Government has failed to present any credible or admissible evidence directly linking Kanu to any act of terrorism, incitement, or violence.

“The charge that Kanu imported a transmitter in 2015 to promote terrorism is legally incompetent. There was no proof of concealment and no customs or regulatory documentation was presented,” he said.

Ifedi noted that the court’s amendment of the charge from the Criminal Code to CEMA was never properly endorsed on the charge sheet. He said that efforts to link Kanu or IPOB to the EndSARS protests were false and defamatory, explaining that the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry indicted Nigerian security forces, not IPOB, for the violence and killings associated with EndSARS. He maintained that Kanu was “abducted” in Kenya and brought to Nigeria without any extradition hearing.

“This act of extraordinary rendition is illegal under Nigerian law, the African Charter, and international norms. The Supreme Court of Nigeria has long held that such conduct can void prosecution,” he said.

Ifedi emphasised the need for Kalu to be discharged the way the Supreme Court of Nigeria discharged and acquitted a Northern Nigerian (Dikko) who had been convicted and sentenced to death by hanging, solely on the ground that he was unlawfully abducted from the Republic of Niger without undergoing a formal extradition process.

“Why does the same judiciary that protected Dikko’s rights now appear to endorse a different standard for Kanu? Is there one law for individuals from the Sahel North and another for those from the South-East?” he asked.