A Federal High Court sitting in Umuahia, Abia State has ordered the Federal Government to return the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu to Kenya from where he was extradited to Nigeria on June 19, 2021.
The Court also ordered the Federal government to pay him the sum of N500 million as damages following his illegal abduction and human rights abuse from Kenya.
Justice E . N Anyadike, who delivered the judgment in a fundamental rights enforcement suit filed by Kanu insisted that the extradition of the Biafra agitator from Kenya without recourse to the legal process was a flagrant abuse of his fundamental human rights.
He held that the respondent failed to disprove the claims of the applicant that he was arrested, blindfolded, tortured, and chained to the ground for eight days in Kenya before his extradition to Nigeria.
Kanu, through his Counsel, Aloy Ejimakor, had approached the court challenging his extradition from Kenya on June 19, 2022.
Ejimakor told the court that the suit is sui generis (of a special class) and was primarily aimed at redressing the infamous unlawful expulsion or extraordinary rendition of Kanu, which is a clear violation of his fundamental rights under Article 12(4) of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, as well as Chapter IV of the Nigerian Constitution.
Speaking to journalists shortly after the judgment, Ejimakor said the judgment has shown that the court still remains the last hope for the common man.
He called on the federal government to obey the court order and return Kanu to Kenya
