RE: Nnamdi Kanu, IPOB, and the Price of Selective Justice

RE: Nnamdi Kanu, IPOB, and the Price of Selective Justice

RE: Nnamdi Kanu, IPOB, and the Price of Selective Justice – A Nation at Crossroads
A Rejoinder to Olugbenga Adebamiwa’s Dishonest Diatribe Against Law, Logic, and Liberty
By Njoku Jude Njoku

It is often said that in a decaying republic, truth becomes treason. That is precisely what fuels the risible article written by one Olugbenga Adebamiwa, who, in an appallingly shallow piece masquerading as informed commentary, has managed to blend ignorance, ethnic bigotry, and blind jingoism into a toxic brew of intellectual vandalism.

Let me make it abundantly clear from the outset: this response will not be polite to falsehood. There is a limit to how long educated people must continue tolerating revisionist nonsense from persons who cannot even differentiate between ex parte rulings and reasoned judicial determinations.

1. IPOB Is Not a Terrorist Organisation – Only a Lawless Government Says So

Let’s start with the most offensive falsehood: the claim that IPOB is a proscribed terrorist group. That tired propaganda line may pass among uniformed mobs and court jesters in the corridors of impunity, but it has been judicially discredited.

While the Buhari regime hurriedly obtained an ex parte order in 2017 to declare IPOB proscribed, the Federal High Court in Abuja, in Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/383/2015, clearly held on 1 March 2017 that IPOB is not an unlawful society. That judgment is final, binding, and unappealed. Even the Nigerian government – with all its lawlessness – has not dared to challenge it.

And more to the point: no country on Earth—not the UK, not the US, not the EU, not even Kenya—has designated IPOB as a terrorist group. Only a terminally dysfunctional state like Nigeria, riddled with Fulani supremacist fantasies and pathological intolerance of dissent, would criminalize a non-violent self-determination group.

2. It Is Criminal to Brand a Citizen Guilty Without Trial

Mr. Adebamiwa, if you’re going to write on legal matters, at least pretend to have read the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria. Section 36(5) guarantees the presumption of innocence. Nnamdi Kanu has never been convicted of any crime in any Nigerian or foreign court.

To criminalize a citizen behind his back—as you have attempted in your smear campaign—is not only unconstitutional, it is a criminal defamation and a violation of due process. It is also, quite frankly, the hallmark of a diseased conscience.

3. The Discharge of Nnamdi Kanu by the Court of Appeal Remains Binding

Let’s revisit history and law, not Adebamiwa’s fairytales. In October 2022, the Court of Appeal in CA/ABJ/CR/625/2022 discharged Nnamdi Kanu on the ground that his extraordinary rendition from Kenya was a flagrant violation of international law and Nigeria’s own laws. The Court held that this illegality robbed the Federal High Court of jurisdiction to try him.

Now here’s the clincher: The Supreme Court did NOT overturn this finding. It merely ducked it. In doing so, it allowed a jurisdictional defect to fester, making its own decision incurably per incuriam.

Nnamdi Kanu cannot be tried again on the same charges. Doing so would amount to double jeopardy, prohibited by Section 36(9) of the Constitution and Article 14(7) of the ICCPR.

4. The Nigerian Army Unleashed Violence, Not IPOB

Historical amnesia is a disease—one that Adebamiwa appears to suffer from in its terminal stage.

In September 2017, long before any secessionist rhetoric became escalated, the Nigerian military launched “Operation Python Dance II” in the South-East. Soldiers stormed Nnamdi Kanu’s ancestral home in Afaraukwu, opened fire on civilians, and killed innocent IPOB members in cold blood.

Videos, photos, eyewitness accounts, and reports by Amnesty International document these atrocities. The violence in the East did not begin with IPOB—it began with an army operating like an occupation force against its own people.

5. The Supreme Court’s Decision Was a Judicial Travesty

For clarity: The Supreme Court’s decision in FRN v. Nnamdi Kanu (SC/CR/1364/2022) was a political compromise, not a legal judgment. It ignored the binding precedents on extraordinary rendition (see Dikko v. State (1987) 5 SC 1) and failed to consider the jurisdictional defect resulting from Kanu’s abduction.

Any court that endorses the benefit of a crime committed by the state—as the Supreme Court inadvertently did—commits a constitutional betrayal.

Justice must not only be done; it must be seen to be done. In Kanu’s case, it was not.

6. IPOB’s Right to Self-Determination is Protected by Law

Under Article 20(1) of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, to which Nigeria is a signatory, every people shall have the right to existence and self-determination. IPOB’s peaceful call for a referendum is not treason. It is a protected right.

Adebamiwa’s attempt to equate self-determination with terrorism is legally bankrupt and morally indefensible.

7. Conclusion: Nigeria is at a Crossroads Because Truth Has Become Treason

The truth remains: Nnamdi Kanu is a political prisoner, IPOB is a lawful self-determination group, and the attempt to vilify them through media blackmail and judicial manipulation will only hasten Nigeria’s collapse into authoritarianism.

Adebamiwa’s article should not be dignified as analysis. It is the moaning of a propaganda hack, not a product of legal or moral reasoning.

Let this serve as a final lesson: facts are stubborn things. And no amount of distortion, intellectual laziness, or tribalistic drivel can bury them.

Signed,
Njoku Jude Njoku
Legal Analyst & Public Affairs Commentator
4th of August 2025