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| ….In photo session with his lawyers |
Leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, appeared in court again on Wednesday dressed in a designer wear he wore when he was re-arrested and brought back to Nigeria in June 2021.
Seated in the courtroom with legs crossed, Kanu beamed with a smile as he took some time to pose for photos with his lawyers.
Kanu, 54, was born on September 25, 1967, at Afaraukwu, Abia State.
The secessionist leader is a holder of Nigerian and British passports. He had earlier jumped bail in June 2018 before leaving for the United Kingdom though he said that he fled because his life was no longer safe in Nigeria.
After about three years abroad, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), at a press briefing in Abuja on June 29, 2021, announced that the IPOB leader was re-arrested in a foreign country and extradited to Nigeria.
Kanu’s Lead Counsel, Ejiofor Ifeanyi, had said the IPOB leader was re-arrested in Kenya and whisked to Nigeria.
Upon his re-arrest and extradition in June 2021, he was re-arraigned before Justice Binta Nyako for terrorism-related charges and has since been remanded in the DSS custody in Abuja.
Justice Nyako had adjourned the trial of Kanu to October 21, 2021, for continuation of hearing but the trial was again adjourned till November 10, 2021.
However, there was confusion on Wednesday as Kanu’s team of lawyers staged a walkout over the refusal of operatives of the Department of State Services to allow some of them to gain access into the courtroom.
Though the counsel for the Federal Government and Director of Public Prosecution, M. D. Abubakar, urged the court to proceed with the trial in the absence of Kanu’s lawyers, the judge declined and adjourned the case till January 19 and 20, 2022, for trial.
Kanu’s followers in Nigeria had declared several sit-at-home orders in the South-East to protest his arrest and demand his release from the custody of the secret police.
The sit-at-home orders have been said to cripple economic activities in Imo, Abia, Anambra, Enugu and Ebonyi, especially on Mondays.
The proscribed group had also declared a sit-at-home which threatened the Anambra election but later called off the order.
~Punch
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