Who he is
Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was born on 25 September 1967, four months after Biafra was declared, at Afaraukwu near Umuahia in what is now Abia State, the eldest son of a traditional ruler. He studied at the University of Nigeria and then in London, became a British citizen, and in 2009 founded Radio Biafra, broadcasting from London to the south-east. He is not a gentle speaker. His broadcasts called Nigeria a zoo and its rulers worse, and I have written elsewhere that I sometimes wince. That is a matter of taste. The state's response was a matter of law, and the law is what this page is about.
Arrested in Lagos
Detained by the State Security Service on his arrival from London. Charged with treasonable felony and related offences. Courts twice ordered his release on bail; the government did not comply.
Bail
Released on bail by the Federal High Court on strict conditions, after eighteen months in custody.
Python Dance
The army raids his father's compound at Afaraukwu; people are killed; Kanu disappears. On 20 September IPOB is proscribed. The court later revokes his bail.
Israel
He resurfaces in a video from Jerusalem, and later in London, and resumes broadcasting.
Kenya
Seized in Nairobi around 19 June, held for days, and flown to Abuja without any extradition process. Presented in court on 29 June in chains. Kenya later denied involvement; the evidence says otherwise.
The United Nations
The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention rules that his abduction, rendition and detention violate international law and calls for his immediate release and compensation.
Court of Appeal
Nigeria's Court of Appeal discharges him, holding that the unlawful rendition stripped the trial court of jurisdiction. The government refuses to release him and appeals.
Supreme Court
The Supreme Court rules that the rendition, though unlawful, does not bar the trial, and sends the case back. He remains in custody.
Trial
The original judge withdraws in September 2024. The trial resumes in 2025 before Justice James Omotosho on seven terrorism counts. Kanu dismisses his lawyers and defends himself; the court rejects his no-case submission.
Life
Convicted on all seven counts and sentenced to life imprisonment. His lawyers file an appeal. The south-east shuts in protest.
The argument in the order
Read the timeline again as a lawyer would. A man is arrested and courts order his release; the state ignores them. He is granted bail; the army raids his home. He is kidnapped abroad; the United Nations says so. His own country's second-highest court frees him; the state refuses to let him out of the building. The highest court says the kidnapping was unlawful but the trial may go on anyway. And then the trial produces a life sentence. At every stage where the law could have stopped the process, the law said stop, and the state did not.
You cannot kidnap a man from a foreign country, ignore three courts and the United Nations, and then ask the world to respect the verdict.
What the charges were
Terrorism, under the Terrorism Prevention Act: broadcasts said to have incited violence against security forces and to have ordered the sit-at-home; membership and leadership of a proscribed organisation; and the importation of a radio transmitter. No count accused him of killing anyone or of ordering a specific killing. The state's case was that words on a radio station caused the deaths of others. That is the charge on which a British citizen was given life in prison, and it is the charge that should worry anyone, anywhere, who broadcasts.
Britain
He is a British citizen. The British government has provided consular visits and, in its own words, raised his case; it has not demanded his release. I have written to my member of parliament. If you are British and reading this, the how to help page tells you how to write to yours. A country that would not tolerate one of its citizens being kidnapped from Kenya by any other state should not tolerate it from Nigeria.
What I think
I have said on the IPOB page that I do not accept the word terrorist. Here I will say only this about the man. He is not a saint, and the movement does not need him to be one. He asked for a vote, loudly, from a radio station, and the state of Nigeria has spent a decade and the credibility of its courts making sure that the question is never put. The question is still the question. Release him, or try him again in a country that did not kidnap him, and then put the question.