News Editor
HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA ( HURIWA) Strongly endorses the decision of the Hon judge of the Abia state high court in Umuahia which today directed the federal high court to pay Just a sum of One billion Naira to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the detained leader of the now Proscribed indigenous people of Biafra (IPOB) . HURIWA supports the order for Government to tender apology to Nnamdi Kanu. The matter was about the invasion but we do think that the landmark judgment suffices for the illegal abduction that the Nigerian government subjected him to in Kenya.
The action of President Muhammedu Buhari’s federal government to abduct Mazi Nnamdi Kanu from Kenya is illegal and constitutionally a crime against humanity. The invasion of his father’s house and the killing by security forces of many of his friends and relatives are unlawful.
Yes what the government did to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu by kidnapping him from from Kenya is not justiciable under the Nigerian law.
Importantly, subjecting a citizen of Nigeria or citizen of another country to rendition is an international crime , given the fact that torture is applied. The invasion of his Father’s house in Umuahia was illegal.
Secondly the import of the Abia state high court ruling in the case between Nnamdi Kanu against the federal government goes to show that the allegations made by Mazi Nnamdi Kanu that he was kidnapped are valid and substantial and that the attempt to kill him here in Nigeria was actually made by security forces.
More so where Kenya also denied knowing anything about his arrest. So we think with all due respect that Nigerian government should apologize to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and pay him the one billion Naira without delay. Any move by the government to appeal this landmark and unimpeachable verdict will amount to colossal waste of public fund.
HURIWA recalled that the embattled leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu defeated the Federal Government in a fundamental rights suit he filed against the Federal Government in the Abia State High Court sitting in Umuahia, the state capital.
In the judgement, the Umuahia High Court ruled the case of the invasion of the country home of Nnamdi Kanu in his favor.
During the invasion, as many as twenty-six persons and several security dogs were reportedly killed.
The court that the sum of one billion Naira be paid to the plaintiff which will be accompanied by an apology from the security operatives that perpetrated the act.
Justice Benson Anya of the Abia State High Court ruled that Kanu’s arrest abduction and forceful return to Nigeria is illegal under local and international laws.
It was reported earlier that Nnamdi Kanu pleaded not guilty to the latest amended 15-count charge of treasonable felony proferred against him by the Department of State Services (DSS), on Wednesday in another the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja.
