BREAKING: Nnamdi Kanu Heads Back To Supreme Court To Challenge 2023 "Erroneous Ruling"

The detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, has returned to the Supreme Court of Nigeria, seeking to challenge the “per incuriam judgment” that “shook the foundation of justice” and “destroyed the rule of law.”

In a statement issued on Monday by his legal team and signed by Barrister Njoku Jude Njoku, and titled “A Judgment That Destroyed Justice”, Kanu’s lawyers stated that the Supreme Court’s ruling of 15 December 2023, which overturned the Court of Appeal’s decision discharging Kanu, was not merely an error, but “a conscious judicial manoeuvre designed to keep him in perpetual captivity.”

According to the statement, the five-member panel led by Justice Garba Lawal, with Justices Emmanuel Agim, Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, Tijjani Abubakar, and Ibrahim Musa Saulawa concurring, “knowingly relied on a repealed law” to remand Kanu for trial.

At the centre of the controversy is the Terrorism (Prevention) (Amendment) Act 2013, which was repealed and replaced by the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act 2022 on 12 May 2022, more than a year before the apex court’s judgment.

“The Supreme Court knew the law had died, acknowledged that a repealed statute cannot sustain a criminal charge, yet proceeded to resurrect a dead law to send Kanu back to the Federal High Court,” Njoku alleged.

He described the ruling as “not an accident nor an intellectual slip,” but a “deliberate judicial ambush” that misrepresented a “dead law as alive.”

The statement argued that because the law under which Kanu was charged no longer existed, the apex court’s decision was “a jurisdictional nullity.”

“A repealed law is a legal corpse. It cannot be revived, acted upon, or used to create criminal liability. Once the enabling statute is abolished, the proceedings built upon it collapse,” Njoku stated.

He added that by applying two contradictory legal positions in the same ruling, first admitting that a repealed law cannot sustain a charge, and then remitting Kanu for trial under that same law, the Court “lost jurisdiction.”

“No doctrine of finality can shield a nullity. Where a judgment is rooted in illegality, the Supreme Court has inherent power and duty to purge its own record,” he wrote.

The legal team further accused the Supreme Court of breaching Section 122 of the Evidence Act 2011, which obligates courts to take judicial notice of all repealed or newly enacted laws.

“By pretending that the repealed 2013 Act was still in force, the Court acted per incuriam, in ignorance of a binding statutory duty,” Njoku contended.

He insisted that a per incuriam judgment is not protected by the doctrine of finality, arguing that the apex court has, in the past, set aside its own decisions made in similar circumstances.

Beyond the legal technicalities, Njoku said the 2023 judgment effectively “crushed” Kanu’s constitutional protection against double jeopardy under Section 36(9) of the 1999 Constitution, which bars a person from being tried again after discharge or acquittal.

“The Court of Appeal had discharged Kanu, which triggered this constitutional shield. Yet the Supreme Court stripped him of this right and sent him back to face the same charges,” the statement read.

Njoku described the ruling as “judicial punishment,” asserting that it sent a dangerous message to the Nigerian state:

“Bring him back and try him again, we have removed the shield. That is not law; it is vindictive jurisprudence.”

Kanu’s lawyers argue that their new motion before the Supreme Court is not only about his personal liberty but about safeguarding the rule of law in Nigeria.

“If this per incuriam judgment is allowed to stand, dead laws can be revived to prosecute citizens, double jeopardy will lose its meaning, and courts will become co-agents of government reprisal,” Njoku warned.

He maintained that correcting the alleged judicial blunder is essential “not just for Kanu, but for every Nigerian who depends on the courts for justice.”