…Court adjourns case to October 16
By Ikechukwu Nnochiri
ABUJA– The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, on Wednesday, adjourned further proceedings in the terrorism charge pending against the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, till October 16.
The adjournment followed the inability of the Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, to conclude and submit before the court its findings on the health status of the defendant.
Trial Justice James Omotosho had, on September 26, ordered the NMA which is the umbrella body of medical practitioners in the country, to constitute a team of experts to ascertain Kanu’s health condition.
The order came after the court dismissed a no-case-submission the embattled IPOB leader filed to be discharged and acquitted of the seven-count charge the federal government preferred against him.
The court gave the medical body eight days to submit its assessment report on Kanu’s health, before it.
The report, the court said, would assist it in determining whether or not it should grant Kanu’s request to be transferred to the National Hospital in Abuja for adequate medical attention.
Specifically, Justice Omotosho directed NMA’s team to visit the medical facility of the Department of State Services, DSS, which has Kanu in its custody, to confirm if it has the capacity to meet his health needs.
He held that the NMA committee was at liberty to use any hospital in the country to carry out its investigations.
The committee, the court said, should comprise eight to 10 medical practitioners, among whom should be a Cardiologist and a Neurologist.
More so, the court ordered that the Chief Medical Director of the National Hospital must also be a member of the committee.
Meanwhile, when the case was called up on Wednesday, a counsel from the DSS, Mr. Suraj S’aad, SAN, informed the court that the NMA contacted the security agency and indicated that the medical report was not ready for presentation.
He, therefore, applied for a week’s adjournment to enable the medical board to conclude its assessment.
The application for an adjournment was not opposed by Kanu’s legal team, which was led by Dr. Onyechi Ikpeazu, SAN.
Consequently, Justice Omotosho deferred the submission of the report till the next adjourned date.
Kanu had, in a motion marked: FHC/ABJ/CR/383/2025, bemoaned that his health had taken a worrisome decline, a situation he said necessitated the invitation of doctors who carried out a thorough examination on him.
“The examination revealed issues to his health, including organs such as his pancreas and liver as well as an emerging lump underneath his armpit and dangerously low levels of potassium.
“The doctors have recommended that he be moved to the National Hospital as an interim measure to afford him medical attention and forestall further decline.
“The applicant’s health is seriously deteriorating, considering the nature of his confinement, thereby making more pressing the need to bring this application and have same heard by a vacation judge,” he added.
However, while opposing the application, the federal government’s team of lawyers led by Chief Adegboyega Awomolo, SAN, insisted that the DSS has well-equipped medical facilities that could effectively provide Kanu’s medical needs.
The federal government equally faulted the medical report that was issued by private physicians/consultants whom Kanu engaged to assess the condition of his health.
Earlier, the court dismissed the defendant’s contention that the prosecution failed to establish a prima facie case to warrant the continuation of his trial.
Kanu had after the prosecution closed its case with the evidence of five witnesses who were mostly DSS operatives, urged the court to terminate the trial and discharge him for want of evidence to sustain the charge.
He maintained that the totality of the evidence before the court did not establish that he committed any known crime.
While dismissing the application, the court said it was convinced that from both oral and documentary evidence that were adduced by the prosecution, a prima facie case was established to require explanations from the defendant.
It held that it was in Kanu’s interest that he should be allowed to clear the air on some of the allegations the FG levelled against him.
Therefore, the court ordered him to open his defence to the charge.
It will be recalled that Kanu was arrested on October 14, 2015, upon his return to the country from the United Kingdom.
Following his arraignment, the court, on April 25, 2017, granted him bail on health grounds after he had spent about 18 months in detention.
Upon the perfection of the bail conditions, he was on April 28, 2017, released from the Kuje prison.
However, midway into the trial, the IPOB leader escaped from the country after soldiers invaded his country home at Afara Ukwu Ibeku in Umuahia, Abia State, an operation that led to the death of some of his followers.
Kanu was later re-arrested in Kenya on June 19, 2021 and extraordinarily renditioned back to the country by security agents on June 27, 2021.
Owing to the development, the trial court, on June 29, 2021, remanded him in the custody of DSS, where he has remained to date.
On April 8, 2022, the court struck out eight out of the 15-count charge that FG preferred against him on the premise that they lacked substance.
Likewise, the Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal, on October 13, 2022, ordered Kanu’s immediate release from detention even as it quashed the charge against him.
Dissatisfied with the decision, the federal government took the matter before the Supreme Court, even as it persuaded the appellate court to suspend the execution of the judgment, pending the determination of its appeal.
While deciding the appeal, the Supreme Court, on December 15, 2023, vacated the judgment of the appellate court and gave the federal government the nod to try the IPOB leader on the subsisting seven-count charge.
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