*Pix above(l-r): Bar Aloy Ejimakor and Mazi Nnamdi Kanu
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Leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s Special Counsel, Bar Aloy Ejimakor, has petitioned both Houses of Parliament of the United Kingdom on continued illegal detention of its British national, Nnamdi Kanu, asking them to intervene in the urgent release of its valued citizen.
In the petition addressed separately to both Houses of Parliament, Ejimakor asked them to prompt His Majesty’s Govt to urgently intervene and demand Nigerian Govt to release Kanu unconditionally from detention and repatriate him to the United Kingdom; and to levy sanctions against the Nigerian Government if it fails to comply within a reasonable time, stressing that the extraordinary rendition under which Kanu was illegally brought to Nigeria, inherently destroys every prospect for a fair trial in the jurisdiction that levied the rendition.
Ejimakor noted that UK courts have held in a plethora of cases that extraordinary rendition creates a barrier to the trial of a suspect, noting that this was precisely the reason the United Kingdom had, in 1984, denied Nigeria’s formal application to extradite Umaru Dikko after his aborted extraordinary rendition from the UK.
He said: “In our humble view, Mr. Kanu’s is no different, except that his case bears more equities because he is a British national and Mr. Dikko was not.
“Additionally, extraordinary rendition is – by itself – a form of torture that should shock the conscience of the Parliament, especially when considered together with the actual physical torture levied on Mr. Kanu by agents of the Government of Nigeria (GON) in Kenya and the solitary confinement to which Mr. Kanu has been subjected in Nigeria since June 2021.
It is also settled that torturing a British citizen overseas triggers the universal criminal jurisdiction of British courts.”
Going further, Ejimakor said: “in alternative to above, the Parliament should promptly intervene with His Majesty’s Government, strongly urging it to make binding proposals to the GON to agree to conduct Mr. Kanu’s trial in the United Kingdom.
“In addition to the fact that all the charges leveled against Mr. Kanu by the GON are alleged to have been committed by him from British soil, there are other legal reasons why Mr. Kanu should be tried in the UK rather than Nigeria. These reasons include the following:
a. Nationality and Citizenship: Mr. Kanu is a dual citizen of Nigeria and the United Kingdom. As a British citizen, he has the right to seek legal protections from the UK government, which includes demanding that the UK be the venue for his trial.
b. Human Rights Concerns: There are genuine concerns about the human rights situation and the treatment of defendants in Nigeria. Given Mr. Kanu’s British citizenship, he would be more likely to receive a fair trial and be treated in accordance with international human rights standards if the trial is held in the UK.
c. Diplomatic Considerations: The UK and Nigeria have a history of good diplomatic relations. Thus, the UK should have an interest in ensuring that one of its citizens receives fair treatment in a criminal trial, not conducted in Nigeria but in the UK.
d. Security and Safety: We have real concerns about the security and safety of Mr. Kanu, including particularly potential threats to his life in Nigeria, evidenced by GON’s military operations against Mr. Kanu in 2017, the extraordinary rendition in 2021, the physical torture in Kenya and the persistent solitary confinement in Nigeria.
e. Fair Trial/Political Interference: There are concerns about political interference in the legal process in Nigeria. A trial in the UK should mitigate these concerns, as well as ensure that the legal proceedings are fair and free from undue political influence. There is also every likelihood (as has happened before) that the GON will not abide by acquittal of Mr. Kanu by a Nigerian court. III. In alternative to Paragraph 2 above but for the same reasons stated therein, the Parliament may intervene with His Majesty’s Government, urging it to make binding proposals to the GON to agree to conduct Mr. Kanu’s trial in a mutually agreed neutral third country (other than Nigeria and the UK), as was done in the Lockerbie trial of Libyan nationals.
“Esteemed Members of House of Commons, our decision to lay this Petition before the Commons was propelled by the undue levity with which His Majesty’s Government has so far handled this matter. Mr. Kanu believes that he has not been accorded the full legal and diplomatic protections he is entitled to as a bonafide British subject.
“We trust therefore that this Petition will be given the most urgent and expeditious attention and due considerations by the House of Commons. The undersigned Counsel, together with Mr. Kanu’s Solicitors/Barristers in the UK and Attorney Bruce Fein (Mr. Kanu’s US-based international Counsel) are all available to personally appear before the Commons should it be deemed necessary in the consideration of this Petition. We thank the members of the House of Commons for their time and attention to this Petition and assure them of our highest respects for the Commons and its esteemed members.
Sincerely: ALOY EJIMAKOR LEGAL SERVICES ———————————- Aloy Ejimakor, Esq. Special Counsel to Mr. Kanu
Fnd below full text of the petition
The Chairman Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons
RE: PETITION TO INTERVENE IN THE CASE OF OKWU-KANU, NWANNEKAENYI NNAMDI KENNY (AKA: MAZI NNAMDI KANU), A BRITISH NATIONAL RENDITIONED, TORTURED AND IMPRISONED BY NIGERIA SINCE 19TH JUNE 2021
Dear Rt Hon Members of Parliament:
We are Solicitors to above-named British citizen (hereafter: Mr. Kanu), on whose behalf and firm Instructions we write and submit this Petition.
For ease of reference, the following is a summary of the background information on the subject matter of the Petition:
1, Mr. Kanu, a British national, is a political activist and a leading advocate for self determination for the people of Biafra (Eastern Nigeria), with the singular aim of creation of a sovereign State of Biafra from Nigeria through referendum. He is the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) which he founded in 2012 for the purpose of actualization of the creation of the State of Biafra.
2, The IPOB is registered as a legal entity in the United Kingdom, And it has numerous offices and chapters around the world. It operates in the open as a nonviolent group, including in Nigeria before the Government of Nigeria (GON) unfairly proscribed/declared it in 2017. However, in October 2023, a High Court in Nigeria declared as unconstitutional the executive actions of the GON in the proscription of IPOB and its declaration as a terrorist group. The Court awarded significant damages against the GON and ordered it to apologize to Mr. Kanu. See ANNEXURE 1. 1 2 3, This whole saga began in October, 2015 when Mr. Kanu was arrested in Lagos, Nigeria, few days after his arrival from his base in London, United Kingdom. He was subsequently charged with treasonable offenses, stemming solely from his proBiafra broadcasts on Radio Biafra from its location in London.
4, During the course of his detention, Mr. Kanu was granted bail several times by a High Court of the Federal Republic of Nigeria but the GON disobeyed the court orders and continued to detain Mr. Kanu without trial.
5, In the course of time and after 18 months in detention without trial, Mr. Kanu was released on bail, due mainly to domestic and international pressure. Following this, Mr. Kanu returned to his ancestral home in Umuahia, Abia State, Southeast Nigeria, where he stayed and awaited his next court date scheduled for October 20, 2017.
6, From September 10 to 14, 2017, Nigerian security forces led by the Army levied lethal attacks at Mr. Kanu’s home. The security forces used live bullets and other lethal munitions and several people including Mr. Kanu, his parents (now late), his siblings, children, women, the elderly, and numerous visitors were at the said home with Mr. Kanu during the attacks.
7, At the end of the attacks, Mr. Kanu’s home was badly damaged, dozens of people were killed, many were wounded and maimed; and the security forces captured several people alive and disappeared them to unknown locations to this day.
8, In January 2022, a High court in Nigeria declared the military attacks at Mr. Kanu’s residence as unconstitutional and a breach of his fundamental rights and awarded him substantial monetary damages. See ANNEXURE 2.
9, In March 2018, the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights (ACHPR) issued an interim Decision, holding that the military attacks on Mr. Kanu (and the contemporaneous proscription of IPOB) violated the African Charter; and accordingly, the ACHPR wrote the former President of Nigeria to remedy the situation but the GON never implemented the Provisional Measures to this day. See ANNEXURE 3.
10, In October 2020, the United Nations Special Rapporteurs transmitted a Communication/Decision (No: AL NGA 5/2020) to the GON, conveying its disapproval of the executive or administrative action of the GON on the proscription of IPOB. In particular, the said Communication/Decision expressly stated that the action of the GON in this regard was motivated by ethnic bias and discrimination against the Igbo. See ANNEXURE 4. 3
11, As a direct consequence of the said military invasion and the nationwide manhunt for him, Mr. Kanu was compelled to flee Nigeria in search of refuge and to save his life. In the course of his involuntary exile, Mr. Kanu, on 12th May 2021, entered the Republic Kenya as a British subject and was legally admitted on his British passport. After his admission, he settled-in at a temporary location in Nairobi, Kenya.
12, After failing in the objective of killing Mr. Kanu during the September 2017 military operation against him, and being aware that he had taken refuge in Kenya, security forces of the GON hotly pursued Mr. Kanu to Kenya and laid in wait and ambush for him.
13, On June 19, 2021, Mr. Kanu drove himself to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Nairobi, Kenya on a personal errand. As soon as he pulled to a stop at the parking lot and alighted from his vehicle, several armed security agents working for GON violently accosted and abducted him, handcuffed him, blindfolded him, bundled him in a vehicle and sped away.
14, The abductors took him to a nondescript private house (not a police station or other official location) somewhere in Nairobi, Kenya and chained him to the floor. Mr. Kanu was not shown any Kenyan arrest warrant or extradition warrant, nor was he informed of the existence of any such warrant. His abductors took turns beating him and torturing him, taunting him and verbally degraded him.
15, He remained chained to the floor for eight days, was not allowed to bathe, was fed bland bread once a day and given non-sanitary water to drink. He was not taken before a Kenyan Court or even a Kenyan police station or other official law enforcement facility or even allowed a phone call.
16, On the eight day (27th June, 2021), his abductors brought him out of the house, put him in a vehicle, drove him straight to the tarmac of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, where they evaded Kenyan immigration and forcibly bundled him into a private jet that departed the airport at about 12 noon on same June 27, 2021 and arrived Abuja, Nigeria in the evening of same day.
17, On arrival in Nigeria, Mr. Kanu was taken to and detained at the facility of the State Security Services (SSS)/Nigerian Intelligence Agency (NIS) in Abuja, where he spent the first night, sleeping on the floor with very bright electric bulbs deliberately left on throughout the night.
18, On 29th June 2021, Mr. Kanu was secretly arraigned and without benefit of his Counsel of record before a Federal High Court in Abuja, Nigeria and said Court 4 wrongfully ordered him detained with the GON’s Secret Police (named: State Security Services), instead of a prison facility, which is a clear violation of the provisions of the Nigeria’s Prisons Act, the Administration of Criminal Justice Act and the provisions of the Nigerian Constitution on right to Counsel.
19, In July 2022, the Working Group of the United Nations Human Rights Council rendered an Opinion, stating that Mr. Kanu was arbitrarily arrested, tortured and extraordinarily renditioned to Nigeria in violation of international laws and norms. Accordingly, the Working Group directed the GON to unconditionally and immediately release Mr. Kanu and accord him the opportunity of seeking reparations. See ANNEXURE 5.
20, On 26th August 2021, the United Nations Special Rapporteurs transmitted a Communication/Decision (No: UA NGA 5/2021) to the GON, conveying its Opinion that the manner of bringing Mr. Kanu from Kenya to Nigeria was illegal and a grave violation of international human rights laws. See ANNEXURE 6.
21, On 13th October, 2022, Nigeria’s Court of Appeal delivered a judgment, ruling that the mode of transferring Mr. Kanu from Kenya to Nigeria amounted to extraordinary rendition. Accordingly, the Court discharged Mr. Kanu from all criminal charges pending against him. See ANNEXURE 7.
22, In addition to the above (on 26th October, 2022), a Nigerian Federal High Court rendered a judgment in favor of Mr. Kanu, condemning the extraordinary rendition and the consequent torture and unlawful detention and consequently awarded substantial damages against the GON (and in favor of Mr. Kanu). ANNEXURE 8.
23, On 15th December 2023, the Nigerian Supreme Court remitted Mr. Kanu’s case back to the originating High Court to consider the charges will stand against him. However, the apex Court strongly condemned both the said military attacks against Mr. Kanu and his extraordinary rendition. Till date, however, the case file is yet to be transmitted to the High Court and the said judgment of remittal is yet to be enrolled and certified, thus leading to a situation where Mr. Kanu remains in limbo without any clear prospects of ever being brought to trial since this saga begin almost nine years ago in 2015.
24, Additionally, Mr. Kanu is gravely ill with three life-threatening conditions, namely a serious heart condition, hypertension and low potassium levels. All of these serious conditions demand specialist medical care and interventions that are not available at the facility where he is being detained or even in Nigeria as a whole. And the GON is fully aware of this.
5 In view of the foregoing, we hereby most respectfully present the following Prayers for the consideration of House of Commons.
I. Urgently intervene with His Majesty’s Government, strongly urging it to promptly make demands on the GON to unconditionally release Mr. Kanu from detention and repatriate him to the United Kingdom; and to levy sanctions against the GON if it fails to comply within a reasonable time. It is pertinent to stress the point that extraordinary rendition inherently destroys every prospect for a fair trial in the jurisdiction that levied the rendition. And UK courts have held in a plethora of cases that extraordinary rendition creates a barrier to the trial of a suspect. This was precisely the reason the United Kingdom had, in 1984, denied Nigeria’s formal application to extradite Umaru Dikko after his aborted extraordinary rendition from the UK. In our humble view, Mr. Kanu’s is no different, except that his case bears more equities because he is a British national and Mr. Dikko was not. Additionally, extraordinary rendition is – by itself – a form of torture that should shock the conscience of the Parliament, especially when considered together with the actual physical torture levied on Mr. Kanu by agents of the GON in Kenya and the solitary confinement to which Mr. Kanu has been subjected to in Nigeria since June 2021. It is also settled that torturing a British citizen overseas triggers the universal criminal jurisdiction of British courts. II. In alternative to above, the Parliament should promptly intervene with His Majesty’s Government, strongly urging it to make binding proposals to the GON to agree to conduct Mr. Kanu’s trial in the United Kingdom. In addition to the fact that all the charges leveled against Mr. Kanu by the GON are alleged to have been committed by him from British soil, there are other legal reasons why Mr. Kanu should be tried in the UK rather than Nigeria. These reasons include the following: a. Nationality and Citizenship: Mr. Kanu is a dual citizen of Nigeria and the United Kingdom. As a British citizen, he has the right to seek legal protections from the UK government, which includes demanding that the UK be the venue for his trial. b. Human Rights Concerns: There are genuine concerns about the human rights situation and the treatment of defendants in Nigeria. Given Mr. Kanu’s British citizenship, he would be more likely to receive a fair trial and be treated in accordance with international human rights standards if the trial is held in the UK. c. Diplomatic Considerations: The UK and Nigeria have a history of good diplomatic relations. Thus, the UK should have an interest in ensuring that one of its citizens receives fair treatment in a criminal trial, not conducted in Nigeria but in the UK. 6 d. Security and Safety: We have real concerns about the security and safety of Mr. Kanu, including particularly potential threats to his life in Nigeria, evidenced by GON’s military operations against Mr. Kanu in 2017, the extraordinary rendition in 2021, the physical torture in Kenya and the persistent solitary confinement in Nigeria. e. Fair Trial/Political Interference: There are concerns about political interference in the legal process in Nigeria. A trial in the UK should mitigate these concerns, as well as ensure that the legal proceedings are fair and free from undue political influence. There is also every likelihood (as has happened before) that the GON will not abide by acquittal of Mr. Kanu by a Nigerian court. III. In alternative to Paragraph 2 above but for the same reasons stated therein, the Parliament may intervene with His Majesty’s Government, urging it to make binding proposals to the GON to agree to conduct Mr. Kanu’s trial in a mutually agreed neutral third country (other than Nigeria and the UK), as was done in the Lockerbie trial of Libyan nationals. Esteemed Members of House of Commons, our decision to lay this Petition before the Commons was propelled by the undue levity with which His Majesty’s Government has so far handled this matter. Mr. Kanu believes that he has not been accorded the full legal and diplomatic protections he is entitled to as a bonafide British subject. We trust therefore that this Petition will be given the most urgent and expeditious attention and due considerations by the House of Commons. The undersigned Counsel, together with Mr. Kanu’s Solicitors/Barristers in the UK and Attorney Bruce Fein (Mr. Kanu’s US-based international Counsel) are all available to personally appear before the Commons should it be deemed necessary in the consideration of this Petition. We thank the members of the House of Commons for their time and attention to this Petition and assure them of our highest respects for the Commons and its esteemed members. Sincerely: ALOY EJIMAKOR LEGAL SERVICES ———————————- Aloy Ejimakor, Esq. Special Counsel to Mr. Kanu/PLEASE SHARE
*Tags: Bar Aloy Ejimakor, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, UK Parliament
