Kanu’s Legal Team Rejects Court’s Transfer Ruling, Vows To Appeal Decision

The legal team of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has strongly rejected Tuesday’s decision of the Federal High Court in Abuja striking out his application seeking transfer from the Sokoto Correctional Centre, describing the ruling as “procedural theatre” and vowing to pursue the matter on appeal.

Justice James Omotosho struck out the motion, ruling that it was incompetent. The application had sought Kanu’s transfer to a facility closer to Abuja to enable him effectively prepare and prosecute his appeal against his life sentence.

The court’s decision followed the withdrawal of a Legal Aid Council lawyer who cited irreconcilable differences and challenges surrounding representation.

Reacting in a statement issued by Njoku Jude Njoku, Esq., on behalf of the Mazi Nnamdi Kanu Global Defense Consortium, the defence dismissed the ruling as inconsequential to the substance of the case.

“Today’s so-called ‘hearing’ was never about justice. It was procedural theatre—designed to generate headlines, manufacture false finality, and distract from the constitutional collapse already embedded in the judgment under appeal,” the statement said.

The legal team argued that striking out the motion does not address what it described as fundamental defects in the conviction itself.
“Striking out or not striking out changes nothing. This matter has moved irreversibly beyond the trial court. It is headed to the Court of Appeal, where the Nigerian judiciary itself will be on trial, not merely one judge,” the statement added.

The defence also criticised the reliance on a Legal Aid lawyer, insisting that the lawyer neither had access to Kanu in Sokoto nor understood the structure of the appeal.

“A lawyer who has never visited Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, cannot access him in Sokoto, and does not understand the architecture of the appeal, cannot pretend to speak to the substance of what is at stake,” the statement said.

According to the legal team, Kanu has been compelled to draft his own court processes because of what it described as state-engineered barriers to his chosen counsel, calling any suggestion otherwise “a deception.”

The statement further accused the trial court of convicting Kanu without a valid offence-creating law in force, alleging want of jurisdiction, abuse of savings clauses, denial of fair hearing, and the importation of facts not pleaded or proved.

“A judge who cannot distinguish a repealed law from the strict and limited operation of a savings clause cannot salvage a conviction by procedural gymnastics,” the defence said, adding that such actions only compound appellate liability.

The legal team maintained that Kanu’s continued detention in Sokoto does not validate the court’s ruling.
“Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s continued detention in Sokoto is not an endorsement of this charade. It is a silent exposure of it,” the statement read.

The defence insisted that the appeal is unavoidable and that the legal record is already fixed. It said, “Today’s event did not strengthen the judgment. It weakened it further. The appeal is inevitable. The law will be read—properly.”

Kanu’s lawyers confirmed that all issues surrounding his conviction, sentence, and detention will now be placed squarely before the Court of Appeal.