The Chief Judge of the Federal High Court in Abuja, Justice John Tsoho, has reassigned the case of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), to another judge after months of intense troubles.
This was disclosed by Kanu’s lead counsel, Aloy Ejimakor. on Saturday, following the accusation of Justice Binta Nyako being biased on the case and asked her to recuse herself from presiding on the terrorism case.
While Justice Nyako stepped down and transferred the case file back to the Chief Judge for reassignment, the file was later returned to her, a move that Kanu strongly opposed.
On February 20, Kanu’s legal team wrote to the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, seeking her interventionfor the reassignment of the case.
In a statement released today, Ejimakor revealed that on Friday, March 7, the legal team received two official letters regarding Kanu’s case—one from the Chief Justice of Nigeria and another from the Chief Judge.
“Yesterday, before the legal team conducted our routine visitation to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, we received two separate official letters regarding his case. The letters are momentous and somewhat pyrrhic.
One letter was from the Honorable Chief Justice of Nigeria, responding to a recent letter we had written to her, seeking her prompt administrative intervention (as the administrative head of the Nigerian judiciary) on the matter of a proper and lawful reassignment of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s case, following the recusal of the judge that was conducting it.
The other letter was from the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, informing us that the case has been reassigned to another judge of the Federal High Court.
Upon receiving the letters, Ejimakor noted that Kanu instructed his legal team to publicly express “sincere gratitude to the CJN for her sound administrative discretion and the promptness with which she responded to their request.”
He also expressed his profound appreciation to members of the general public who publicly supported our righteous demands that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s case be reassigned to another judge, as the law demands.
“To be clear, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has always been ready to stand trial because he is firmly convinced of his innocence, but the perverse events of past six months posed portent dangers to his constitutional rights, particularly his right to fair and speedy hearing”.
“So, now that the first steps have been taken by the authorities to do the lawful thing, Mazi Kanu and his legal team shall take stock and hanker down to the zealous preparation of his defense”.
