Kanu’s Counsel Drags Nigeria, Kenya To African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights

Barr Aloy Ejimanor, special counsel to the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, Monday, stated that he had commenced a continental legal action against Nigeria and Kenya before the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights to demand accountability for the extraordinary rendition of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.

Barr Ejimakor told THE WHISTLER that, “Jurisdiction lies with the commission because Nigeria and Kenya are State Parties to the African Charter; and Nigeria even took a step further to domesticate the charter, thus making it part of her municipal laws.

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“Both countries also have extradition laws that prohibit this sort of reprehensible conduct that saw Kanu to Nigeria. More particularly, extraordinary rendition is expressly prohibited under the African Charter, where it provides that ‘A state may not transfer (e.g. deport, expel, remove, extradite) an individual to the custody of another state unless it is prescribed by law and in accordance with due process and other international human rights obligations’.

“A victim of extraordinary rendition is entitled to remedies mandated by the Charter. Therefore, among many other reliefs, I requested that Kanu be restored to his state of being before the rendition, which state of being was that he travelled to Kenya on his British passport and was duly admitted as such and as a free man.

“Further, that no valid territorial jurisdiction can issue from an act of extraordinary rendition because Kanu is, technically speaking, still in Kenya. And that the Nigerian bench warrant standing against Kanu is, in the absence of any successful extradition proceedings in Kenya, invalid to arrest in Kenya.”

He said he further requested the commission to adopt other urgent measures to protect Nnamdi Kanu in the interim.

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He recalled stating that, “Kanu’s trial will be a trial within trial. Any nation that dabbles in extraordinary rendition has unwittingly brought impediments to her territorial jurisdiction. So, Nigeria has triggered a hornets’ nest that has, for the first time, brought the international legal order to bear on the matter of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.”

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