The family of the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, has called on the NJC to sanction the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice Terhemba John Tsoho and the former Judge handling Kanus trial, Justice Binta Nyako.
In a statement signed by Emmanuel Kanu, the family said the two Judges ought to be sanctioned for bringing the judiciary into disrepute.
“In any sane country that takes adherence to the rule of law seriously, both John Tsoho, the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court and Binta Nyako the presiding judge that made the recusal order ought to be sanctioned for bringing the judiciary into disrepute.
“Is it not bizarre that a judge blatantly refused to obey an order of court? A chief judge that sought to set aside a valid court order by way of a phantom memo (written note) and a presiding judge that blatantly refused to honour the order she enrolled in her own court have no business being on the bench,” the family argued.
Emmanuel said it was even more shocking that some poorly informed, self-appointed defenders of judicial impunity in Nigeria, would argue on the pages of newspapers and media interviews that a judge can ignore a valid court order.
“Whilst we welcome the timely intervention of the Honourable Chief Justice of Nigeria in ensuring that the decade long sham trial of Nnamdi Kanu is duly assigned to a competent judge untainted by bias or one that will not openly and unashamedly pander to tribal sentiments or exhibit the tendency to succumb to executive manipulation, we find it shocking that it required the involvement of the conscious public and that of the most senior judicial officer in Nigeria for Binta Nyako to obey her own order of recusal she made in her own court,” the younger Kanu stressed.
“At the heart of this long running saga is the attempt by the state of Nigeria to criminalize self-determination. which is a right guaranteed by law. If people were to take the time to study the origin of the persecution of Nnamdi Kanu and the travails he continues to face and endure, they would understandably come to the conclusion that what is happening with the illegal and criminal proscription of IPOB in Abuja courts by haters of the Igbo race is not far removed from what transpired prior to the unleashing of the pogrom and genocidal war that claimed five million Igbo lives in 1966.”
The family said the same way the1966 coup was tagged an Igbo coup and used as cover to “unleash the Holocaust on the Biafra nation, is how they aim to use the cover of terrorism (IPOB proscription) to eliminate the youthful populations of the East and jail Nnamdi Kanu.”
“The purveyors of this false narrative that Nnamdi Kanu is the leader of an outlawed group have never asked themselves how come a court of law in the same Abuja found that IPOB is not an unlawful group, only for Abubakar Malami, former Attorney General of the Federation, instead of going on appeal, to go to the chambers of his fellow Fulani and hater of the Igbo race in the person of Justice Kafarati to declare IPOB a terrorist organisation without following the due process of law, as outlined in the constitution of Nigeria.
“Today, traducers of the self-determination of Biafra have latched on to this illegal ex-parte proscription order to charge Nnamdi Kanu with facilitating terrorism but have completely forgotten that the same Abuja court ruled that IPOB is not an unlawful group,” the younger Kanu lashed out.
The family said selective obedience and disobedience to court orders is the issue facing Nigeria in the Kanu case and urged all to confront it.
