BY GODWIN IJEDIOGOR
AT last, the ongoing terrorism case against the leader of the Indigenous People Of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, has been reassigned to another Judge.
This is on the directive of the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice John Tsoho, after months of intense pressure and following the intervention of the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun.
Kanu’s Special Counsel, Aloy Ejimakor, who disclosed this in a statement on Saturday, March 8, said: “Yesterday, before the legal team conducted our routine visitation to Kanu, we received two separate official letters regarding his case. The letters are momentous and somewhat pyrrhic.
“One letter was from the Honourable Chief Justice of Nigeria, responding to a recent letter we had written to her, seeking her prompt administrative intervention (as the administrative head of Nigerian judiciary) on the matter of a proper and lawful reassignment of 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.
“Consequent upon these latest developments, Kanu instructed the legal team to publicly convey his sincere gratitude to the Chief Justice of Nigeria for her sound administrative discretions and the dispatch with which she responded to our request.
“He also expressed his profound appreciations to members of the general public who publicly expressed their support to our righteous demands that Kanu’s case be reassigned to another Judge, as the law demands.
“To be sure, Kanu has always been ready to take his trial, because he is firmly convinced of his innocence. But the perverse events of the past six months (from September 2024, when the recusal happened) posed portent dangers to his constitutional rights, particularly his right to fair and speedy hearing.
“It was in view of this that we were propelled to resort to taking extraordinary measures to ensure that his case is properly reassigned and conducted in accordance with the law.
“So, now that the first steps have been taken by the authorities to do the lawful thing, Kanu and his legal team shall take stock and hanker down to the zealous preparation of his defence.”
Justice Binta Murtala-Nyako had been presiding over the trial, but during the court’s hearing on September 24, last year, Kanu requested that Justice Murtala-Nyako recuse herself from presiding over the matter, accusing her of bias.
She later succumbed to the pressure and returned the case file to Justice Tsoho, who rejected her decision and directed her to continue with the trial.
