Aloy Ejimakor, lead counsel for Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), on Thursday said President Bola Tinubu and the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Lateef Fagbemi, can restore the bail granted to the Biafra agitator.
Ejimakor based his call on a December 2023 Supreme Court judgment, which found it wrong to have revoked the bail granted to Kanu by the Federal High Court.
Citing Section 287(1) of the Nigerian Constitution, Ejimakor stated that Tinubu and Fagbemi “do not need any further court order” to restore Kanu’s bail.
In 2019, Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court in Abuja revoked Kanu’s bail and issued a bench warrant for his arrest. The order followed Kanu’s continued absence from his trial since late 2017. Kanu had originally been granted bail on April 25, 2017, on health grounds but had not attended trial since November 2017.
On May 20, 2024, Justice Nyako refused to restore Kanu’s bail, which his legal representatives described as erroneous. Following her refusal, Ejimakor took the case to the Appeal Court to contest Justice Nyako’s ruling.
After an unsuccessful attempt, the matter was brought before the Supreme Court, which ruled that the revocation of Kanu’s bail was indeed wrong.
In a statement titled “Mazi Nnamdi Kanu: What the public may not know,” Ejimakor explained: “In December 2023, the Supreme Court held that it was wrong to have revoked Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s bail, meaning that his bail should, without more, be restored by virtue of Section 287(1) of the Constitution, which states: ‘The decisions of the Supreme Court shall be enforced in any part of the Federation by all authorities and persons, and by courts with subordinate jurisdiction to that of the Supreme Court.’
“The operative part in these provisions lies in the phrase that says, ‘by all authorities and persons, and by the courts.’ It follows, therefore, that since the Federal High Court refused to enforce the decision of the Supreme Court by its inexplicable failure to restore Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s bail, the Federal Government, which is an ‘authority,’ or President Tinubu or AGF Fagbemi (who are ‘persons’), can step in and restore Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s bail. They are bound to do so without more because, by the clear provisions of the Constitution, they do not need any further court order.
“In other words, it does not lie with the courts alone to enforce the decisions of the Supreme Court. The President or the Attorney-General can also concurrently exercise the same power. To be sure, their collective refusal to act has unwittingly turned Mazi Nnamdi Kanu into a victim of false or unlawful imprisonment by the Nigerian state.
“This is where Britain comes in, as Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is also its citizen, and under British law and pertinent international law binding Nigeria and Britain, no British citizen should be detained illegally by any country, regardless of dual nationality.
“So, the question to ask is this: Is it lawful or constitutional for the President and the Attorney General (who breached the Constitution by refusing to enforce the decision of the Supreme Court) to turn around and insist on subjecting Mazi Nnamdi Kanu to trial before a Federal High Court that also violated the Constitution by refusing to enforce the same decision of the Supreme Court?
“The answer is obvious: It is a blatant violation of Section 287(1) of the Constitution. It is unlawful, perverse, and offends the basic canons of equity and good conscience, making it immoral to boot.
“Equity requires all to have clean hands. The trial of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu no longer bears any clean hands because the authorities (the President and the AGF) that prosecuted him, and the Federal High Court that intended to try him, brazenly dishonored the Supreme Court and the Constitution by refusing to restore his bail.
“And this: How can you subject a man to the rigors and travails of prosecution and trial under a Constitution you flagrantly violated in its black letters and spirit? Is Nigeria under a rule of law or a rule of impunity, whims, and caprices? This is the crux of the matter.”
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