Nnamdi Kanu’s current legal representatives have called on his former attorneys, Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN, and Ifeanyi Ejiofor, to account for their failure to challenge critical flaws in the charge sheet used to prosecute the IPOB leader. In a statement released Sunday by Christopher Chidera Esq., the defence team labeled the indictment a legal nullity, asserting that the proceedings relied on legislation that had already been repealed.
Citing Supreme Court precedents, the team argued that a valid charge is essential for criminal jurisdiction. They contended that their predecessors failed to force the trial court to address the obvious defects within the document. The statement emphasized that the Court of Appeal had effectively ended the case in 2022 by quashing the charges, yet the previous team failed to capitalize on this victory.
The defence further highlighted that counts 1 through 6 were based on the 2013 Terrorism Prevention Amendment Act, which was superseded by the 2022 Terrorism Prevention and Prohibition Act. They noted that Section 36(12) of the Constitution forbids convictions based on laws that no longer exist. According to the current team, Ozekhome and Ejiofor did not show sufficient effort in highlighting these jurisdictional collapses or the failure to specify the locations of alleged broadcasts.
Ultimately, the statement claimed that Kanu’s prolonged custody and subsequent conviction were facilitated by the inaction of his former counsel. The team concluded that the public and Kanu’s family deserve to know why these specific legal objections were ignored when the client’s freedom was at stake.
