Detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB),Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has called on the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) to use its ongoing 2025 Annual General Conference in Enugu to examine what he described as serial miscarriages of justice in his trial.
Kanu made the appeal in a letter addressed to the NBA President and received at the Association’s national secretariat on August 22, 2025. The letter, dated August 18 and personally signed by him, was made available to journalists in Abuja on Friday.
The IPOB leader, in the letter titled “Re: Miscarriages of Justice in the Case of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu”, argued that the Bar cannot afford to remain silent in the face of judicial excesses. “The NBA, as one of the guardians of the legal profession and the promoter of the rule of law, cannot continue to turn its face the other way,” he stated.
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Kanu described his petition as more than a personal cry for help. “May I inform you that this is not merely a letter of a persecuted man; it is a bill of indictment against a segment of the Nigerian judiciary that has, in my case, converted courts of law into arenas of impunity,” he wrote.
He alleged that the manner in which the courts have handled his trial amounts to “judicial lynching as against constitutional order,” stressing that the principle of fair hearing had been disregarded. “Audi alteram partem – the sacred maxim of fair hearing has been shattered beyond recognition,” he said.
Kanu pointed to specific provisions of the law, including Section 36 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), Sections 169 and 293 of the ACJA 2015, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Article 7), and the ICCPR (Article 14), which he claimed had been violated in his case.
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Citing rulings from multiple legal authorities, Kanu noted that both Nigerian and international bodies had condemned his extraordinary rendition from Kenya. “The Supreme Court itself, the Court of Appeal which discharged me, the Federal High Court which declared my extraordinary rendition illegal, the Kenyan High Court, UN Special Rapporteurs, and the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention have all confirmed that I was abducted, tortured, and extraordinarily renditioned from Kenya in violation of domestic and international law,” Kanu stressed.
He urged the NBA to investigate the alleged infractions committed by judges involved in his case and to make public its findings. “Affirm that no Nigerian should ever again be detained by abduction or tried under a repealed law. Hold errant judges accountable, restoring public confidence in the Bar and Bench,” he pleaded.
For Kanu, the matter transcends his personal ordeal. “This case is not only about me. It is about whether Nigeria’s judiciary is bound by law or by impunity. The constitution, statutes, and international treaties have all been shredded. The Bar cannot be silent,” he warned.
Ending his letter with a direct appeal to the NBA delegates in Enugu, Kanu wrote: “I hereby call on the Nigerian Bar Association to discuss these judicial misconducts as one of your topics of discussions in the ongoing 2025 NBA Annual Conference. Qui tacet consentire videtur, he who is silent is taken to agree. Silence now would make the NBA complicit in the erosion of Nigeria’s legal foundations. Thank you and God bless the NBA.”
