Biafra: No bail for Kanu - Appeal Court

 26/05/2016 

The Court of Appeal Division in Abu­ja has dismissed the appeal filed before it by the detained leader of the In­digenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu.

In its judgment yester­day, the three-man panel of justices of the Appellate Court headed by Justice Abdul Aboki, unanimous­ly held that Kanu’s appeal lacked merit.

The court also refused to order the release of the de­fendants on bail, saying the allegations against them are “grievous and serious”.

Justice Aboki, who read the lead judgement, said it was not in doubt that the 1st defendant, Kanu, has dual citizenship, adding that his possession of both Nigeri­an and British passports in­creases the likelihood that he could jump bail if re­leased from detention.

On the procedure adopted by the trial court, the Appeal Court maintained that Justice John Tsoho had the discretion to decide how the proceedings should be conducted.

 

“The lower court has the power to exercise its discre­tion on the matter and the exercise of such discretion by the trial judge did not amount to denial of fair hearing to the defendants.

“The issues are resolved against the appellants and the ruling of the trial court is hereby upheld”, the Appellate Court held.

Kanu and two oth­er pro-Biafra agitators, Da­vid Nwawusi and Benjamin Madubugwu, had gone to the Appellate Court to chal­lenge the ruling of the Fed­eral High Court, Abuja that denied them bail and also held that the Federal Government’s witnesses should be shielded.

Kanu and his co-accused are being tried on a six-count treason charge preferred against them by the Federal Government.

They had alleged bias in their consolidated appeal against Justice Tsoho, who not only declined to grant them bail, but also permit­ted the prosecution to shield the identity of eight witnesses billed to testify in the matter.

Justice Tsoho had equally rejected the application pray­ing him to discharge and ac­quit the three defendants in line with Section 351(1) of the Administration of Crim­inal Justice Act, 2015.

Kanu and his co-de­fendants, through their law­yer, Chief Chuks Muoma (SAN), argued before the ap­pellate court that Justice Tso­ho erred in law “when having refused the application for the witnesses of the prosecu­tion to testify behind screens, or masked” on February 19, 2016, “suddenly varied the or­der in the ruling delivered on March 7, 2016 on a mere oral application by the respond­ent.”

They maintained that the variation order was made on the basis of a mere oral ap­plication by the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), Mohammed Diri, who had informed the trial court that witnesses scheduled to tes­tify against the defendants said they would not appear unless they were allowed to wear masks or their identi­ties shielded from both law­yers and people observing the proceeding.

Justice Tsoho gave an or­der permitting the witness­es to testify behind a screen, stressing that the decision did not amount to a variation of a previous ruling that prohibit­ed the witnesses from appear­ing in mask.

The defendants had earli­er opposed Federal Govern­ment’s’ application for secret trial, even as they queried the propriety of the court allow­ing “masquerades” to testify against them.