Amid the controversy surrounding the appeal filed by leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu, to challenge his conviction, a lawyer has alleged that due process was not followed in the agitator’s trial.
The Court of Appeal is yet list Kanu’s appeal for hearing, leading to threats by IPOB to boycott the 2027 election in the South-East.
Speaking on the trial on Wednesday, a lawyer and member of the Mazi Nnamdi Kanu Global Defence Consortium, Onyedikachi Ifedi, said Kanu was arraigned, tried and convicted under different laws without the prosecution amending the charge.
“Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was forced to plead to a non-existent law, evidence was adduced under that dead framework, and a conviction was entered in the judgment of 20 November 2025 under a completely unpleaded, repealed statute — all after Justice James Omotosho explicitly refused the defendant’s request for a formal amendment under the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) 2015.
“When the law pleaded, the law tried, and the law convicted under are three entirely different things, it is not a technical irregularity—it is a total collapse of due process,” Ifedi said, citing Okeke v. State (2003) 15 NWLR (Pt. 843) 243.
According to him, Kanu was forced to take a plea to Count 7 framed under the Criminal Code Act Cap C-45, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004, which he described as “a non-existent statutory designation that combined the title of one Act (Cap C38) with the chapter number of another (Cap C45)”.
Ifedi added that during the trial, the prosecution led evidence and conducted the trial under “this dead statutory frame without ever filing a formal amendment under Section 216 of the ACJA 2015”.
The lawyer further noted that, on 20 November 2025, Justice Omotosho entered a conviction and handed down a five-year prison sentence under Section 47(2)(a) of the Customs and Excise Management Act (CEMA) — a statute he said was never pleaded in the charge, never put to the defendant, and never the subject of a fresh plea.
He alleged that the refusal to amend the charge was not an oversight by the court or prosecution but a deliberate refusal to comply with statutory procedure.
The lawyer added, “On 3 November 2025, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu explicitly raised the defect in open court, demanding that the charge be amended as required by law. Justice Omotosho brushed aside the defendant’s objection, declaring from the bench that Section 36(12) “applies at the point of conviction, not trial.”
“That ruling is a grave misdirection in law. Section 36(12) of the 1999 Constitution, read alongside Section 36(6)(a), governs the entire criminal proceeding—from the moment a plea is taken. Under sections 216 and 218 of the ACJA 2015, a trial judge cannot reserve the correction of a statutory charge until the final judgment.”
According to him, Section 216 of the ACJA requires a formal application and order to substitute or amend a defective charge sheet, while Section 218 of the ACJA strictly mandates that whenever a charge is amended, the court shall call upon the defendant to plead afresh to the amended count.
“By refusing to order an amendment and forcing the defendant through a trial on an unamended, defective count, Justice Omotosho deprived the court of jurisdiction to enter a conviction under CEMA,” Ifedi stated.
Faulting what he described as convicting on an unpleased, repealed statue, the lawyer noted that the trial judge executed a “judgment swap” by invoking CEMA Section 47(2)(a) to sentence Kanu to five years imprisonment.
According to him, the step breached the principle of fair hearing, as provided in Section 36(6)(a) of the Constitution, which stipulated that an accused person has a constitutional right to be informed promptly, in detail, of the nature and cause of the offence charged.
He added, “Convicting a defendant under a statute that was never pleaded in the charge sheet, without rearraignment or notice, is an irremediable violation of fair hearing.”
Stressing that an unexplained law cannot sustain a conviction, the lawyer argued that not amending the charge means that the re-arraignment is a nullity. He insisted, “This is not a technical slip or a harmless misdescription. It is a complete failure of the statutory framework governing criminal trials in Nigeria.”
Nnamdi kanu arraigned, tried, convicted under different laws – Lawyer