Ikenga

Free Mazi Nnamdi Kanu: Nigeria Cannot Keep One Law For The Igbo And Another For Everyone Else Nigeria Is Not Short Of Armed Men. It Is Short Of Equal Justice. Mazi Nnamdi Kanu Sits In a Nigerian Prison Under a Life Sentence Because The Nigerian State Decided That An Igbo Man Who Demanded Self-Determination, And Who Raised a Regional Security Network After Farms And Communities In The South-East Had Become Targets Of Kidnapping, Violence And a Killing Ground, Was a Terrorist. That Conviction, Delivered On 20 November 2025, Is Now Being Challenged On Appeal. The Case Must Be Heard. The Government That Fought To Keep Him In Chains When An Earlier Court Discharged Him Cannot Now Remain Silent When He Is Asking For His Appeal To Be Heard. That Is Not The Posture Of a Confident Prosecution. It Raises Serious Questions About a State That Appears Determined To Keep a Political Prisoner Locked Away Rather Than Allow The Law To Be Tested Fully And Transparently. Call His Imprisonment What It Is: Unjust, Illegal In Its Origins, And Unconstitutional In Its Method. He Did Not Simply “Jump Bail” In The Cartoon Version The Federal Government Has Sold For Years. In April 2017, He Was Granted Bail. In September 2017, During Operation Python Dance II, Soldiers Moved On Afaraukwu, Umuahia. His Family Compound Was Raided, And The Military Operation Resulted In Deaths. Hundreds Of People Were Shot And Killed. His Father’s Palace Was Desecrated, Household Property Was Carted Away, And The Items They Could Not Carry Were Destroyed. IPOB And Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s Family Have Always Maintained Something Simpler And More Terrible: The Military Came For Him In His Home, And He Fled Because Remaining There Could Have Cost Him His Life. A Man Running From An Armed Assault On His Family Home Is Not a Fugitive From Justice And Should Not Casually Be Reduced To a “Bail-Jumper” Without Confronting The Circumstances That Caused Him To Leave. He Is a Survivor Of State Violence. The Government That Nearly Got Him Killed Then Spent Years Branding Him a Fugitive From Justice And Branding Him a Bail-Jumper. That Is Not Justice. That Is Narrative Management. When They Finally Got Him Again, They Did Not Use a Conventional Extradition Process. In June 2021, He Was Abducted In Kenya, Held Incommunicado, Flown Into Nigeria Without Due Process And Brought Back To Nigeria Under Circumstances That Courts Subsequently Condemned. That Is The Extraordinary-Rendition Controversy At The Heart Of This Case. The Court Of Appeal In 2022 Discharged Him, Finding Serious Violations Arising From The Manner In Which He Was Brought Back To Nigeria. A United Nations Working Group On Arbitrary Detention Also Found His Detention Arbitrary, Said The Transfer Violated International Law And Called For Appropriate Remedies. In 2025, a Kenyan Court Also Ruled Against The Circumstances Surrounding His Removal From Kenya And Declared His Abduction And Forcible Removal From Kenya Unconstitutional And Illegal. Nigeria’s Supreme Court Later Described The Manner Of His Return And Rendition As “Unfair And Oppressive” While Nevertheless Allowing The Criminal Proceedings To Continue. A State That Concedes It Kidnapped a Man Across a Border And Then Convicts Him On The Fruit Of That Kidnapping Is Not Administering Justice. It Is Laundering An Abduction Through a Courtroom. Think About That. A State Can Unlawfully Or Oppressively Bring a Man Across An International Border, Then Put Him On Trial After That Process, And Still Insist That The Resulting Prosecution Represents Ordinary Justice. A State That Concedes The Process Was Unfair Should Not Be Surprised When Citizens Question The Legitimacy Of Everything That Followed. Now The Conviction Itself Is Being Challenged On Serious Legal Grounds, Including Arguments Concerning The Terrorism Legislation Under Which He Was Prosecuted And The Applicability Of Repealed Provisions.