Defense counsels of the sdetained leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, has threatened that they would withdraw their representation from the terrorism trial.
The lead counsel, Alloy Ejimakor issued the threat while addressing newsmen in Abuja on Wednesday.
According to him, the legal counsels would withdraw if the Department of State Services (DSS) denied them full access to Kanu.
“We will not participate in the assassination of justice in a Nigerian court over the head of Nnamdi Kanu. We will refuse to be part of the programmed injustice,” he said.
He said the denial of access to Kanu by the DSS had made it difficult to prepare for his defense against the case of terrorism charges.
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A member of the legal team, Nnaemeka Ejiofor, said the Nigerian government committed an international crime by extraditing Kanu from Kenya.
“If Nigeria were a human being, she would have been sent to prison for committing the heinous crime.
“FG sent people to Kenya to kidnap Kanu; these people should be arrested and punished.
“Unless Nigeria frees itself from the crime of Kanu kidnapping, it will remain a criminal country,” he said, adding that Kanu never committed a crime and therefore did nothing to justify his “persecution by the Nigerian government,” he said.
According to Ejiofor, calling for self-determination and a referendum on whether the nation should emerge as Nigeria, is not a crime that should lead to the imprisonment of the IPOB leader.
He said Nigeria currently does not have a valid constitution to rely on, pointing out that the 1999 constitution was an extension of the decree of the military junta in power at the time.
“To avoid a vacuum, we manage it as a country and yet the government does not respect it until the people of Nigeria come together to decide whether it should exist as a nation. There can be no Nigeria there,” Ejiofor said.
He stressed the need for a review of the 1999 Constitution, which he said Nigerians were forced to adopt.
He claimed that Kanu was in detention at the direction of the federal government, thereby violating the court’s order, particularly the decision of the Supreme Court, which found that Kanu’s detention had no basis or leg to stand.