As legal minds and human right advocates continue to review the life sentence slammed on Mazi Nnamdi Kanu by Justice James Omotosho, a Human rights lawyer, Christopher Chidera, has declared that the Abuja Federal High Court judgment will not pass constitutional scrutiny in the final analysis.

Chidera, who picked holes in the judgment, argued that Kanu was convicted with repealed and non-existent laws contrary to constitutional provision.

The leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader was sentenced for life following his conviction on terrorism charges brought by the Nigerian government, and is currently serving the prison term at the Sokoto Correctional Centre.

Chidera, in a statement on Tuesday, noted that the judgment of the Abuja Federal High Court was in word and spirit against the expressed provisions of Section 36(12) of the 1999 Constitution, which stipulated that a person shall not be convicted of a criminal offence, unless the offence is defined in a written law in force at the time.

According to him, the law under which Kanu was charged was no longer a written law in force at the time he was convicted.

The lawyer faulted the judgment for treating the Constitution as a suggestion rather than the country’s supreme law.

“The Constitution is not a suggestion. It is the supreme law. The Nnamdi Kanu judgment is a legal nullity built on repealed and non-existent laws,” the human rights lawyer stated.

Chidera also submitted further that the judgment undermined the integrity of the country pointing out that sentencing Kanu on the basis of repealed Act does not portray Nigeria as a constitutional democracy.

“Nigeria cannot claim to be a constitutional democracy while its courts attempt to convict a citizen under laws that do not exist. The prosecution-built counts 1–6 on the Terrorism Prevention (Amendment) Act 2013 — a statute that has been repealed and is no longer part of Nigeria’s criminal law.

“Section 36(12) of the Constitution is unequivocal – ‘A person shall not be convicted of a criminal offence unless that offence is defined in a written law in force at the time.’”

Stressing that a repealed law is not a written law in force, the lawyer argued that conviction under a repealed law is void. “There is no judicial creativity that can cure repeal.”

Arguing that Count 7 of the charge against Kanu is based on a non-existent statute, he added, “Count 7 claims reliance on the so-called Criminal Code Act Cap C45. There is no such Act in Nigeria’s statute book. The Supreme Court of Nigeria itself held that Count 7 was defective and ordered it to be corrected. Neither the prosecution nor the trial court complied.”

Further arguing that a court cannot invent jurisdiction over an offence that does not exist in any statute, the lawyer declared, “A judge cannot rewrite Nigeria’s laws from the bench.”

He faulted the trial court for allegedly ignoring a Supreme Court directive for amendment of Count 7 of the charge against Kanu, stating that in any constitutional democracy, a lower court cannot sit in open defiance of the highest court.

The statement further observed that the Abuja Federal High Court refused to take judicial notice of the repeal of the law under which Kanu was charged.

“Section 122 of the Evidence Act makes repeal of public statutes a matter for mandatory judicial notice. Repeated requests to the trial court to take notice were refused. A judge who refuses to acknowledge the very existence of the laws he swore to uphold has abandoned the judicial oath he took under the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution.

“Charges cannot be amended by written address. Situs cannot be invented by affidavit. A conviction cannot rest on a law that was never read to the accused. How can a man be tried under one set of laws and then convicted under a different set of laws that were never put before him? Even more astonishing, Count 7 was then tied to CEMA, another statute both misapplied and statute-barred, with a limitation period of five years long expired — and with the accused having already spent more than that period in unlawful detention,” it said.

Insisting that the court lacked jurisdiction to prosecute and convict Kanu, the lawyer declared that the IPOB leader cannot be lawfully convicted on repealed or non-existent laws.

Demanding Kanu’s immediate release, the rights lawyer said, “His continued detention is unconstitutional. He must be released immediately and unconditionally. To convict a citizen under laws that do not exist is not merely a miscarriage of justice — it is the death of legality.

“Nigeria is better than this. Our Constitution demands better than this.
And history will remember who stood for the law, and who stood against it,” he added.