The proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has accused Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court in Abuja of convicting and sentencing its leader, Nnamdi Kanu, without enough evidence.
In a press statement issued on Thursday by IPOB’s media and publicity secretary, Emma Powerful, the outlawed group alleged that the verdict was politically driven to serve interests within the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Describing the judgement as a miscarriage of justice, IPOB claimed it was politically motivated.
“Justice Omotosho convicted Mazi Nnamdi Kanu without proof, without allocutus, and exiled him to Sokoto, fully aware that such a transfer would make access to lawyers, funding of appeal, and effective defence financially prohibitive and practically near impossible,” the statement reads.
“This was not justice. It was vendetta dressed in robes.”
The group further alleged that the judge acted to appease political actors within the APC, and claimed that insecurity had since spread to areas previously considered safe.
“While Justice Omotosho busied himself doing the bidding of his APC political masters by jailing an innocent man, the very forces he sought to appease have now carried terror into Yorubaland itself,” IPOB said.
“Today, communities are under sustained attack by Fulani terrorists, villages raided, lives lost, ancestral lands violated. The irony is brutal and undeniable: while Omotosho persecuted a man who warned against injustice, injustice has come knocking at his own doorstep.”
IPOB noted that Kanu had repeatedly warned that injustice would not be confined to any ethnic group, religion, or political alliance.
“He warned that those who sacrificed truth for ambition would reap the whirlwind. Those warnings are no longer prophecy, they are unfolding reality,” the statement read.
The group also challenged President Bola Tinubu to justify Kanu’s continued detention amid worsening insecurity across the country.
“Those advising this administration to continue the unlawful detention of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu are not defending Nigeria, they are accelerating its collapse. They are ensuring that injustice travels, mutates, and ultimately consumes everyone,” IPOB said.
IPOB added that, “Nigeria will know no peace until justice is restored. The immediate release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is not a concession, it is a necessity,” warning that history would judge those responsible for his imprisonment.
