A Nigerian federal high court has set a November 20 date to issue its judgment in separatist leader Nnamdi Kanu’s terrorism case, after Kanu refused for the sixth time to enter a defence against government allegations that he led an outlaw group fighting to separate the southeastern region off from the rest of Nigeria.<\/p>\n
Kanu, who leads the banned Indigenous People of Biafra, is facing a seven-count terrorism charge stemming from his campaign for the secession of southeastern Nigeria. He denies wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
On Friday Kanu filed a motion challenging the court’s jurisdiction, arguing that Nigeria has no existing terrorism law and that the offence of terrorism has been abolished.<\/p>\n
Instead, Justice James Omotosho said Kanu had exhausted the six-day window allocated for his defence and the court had no option but to close the case, which has become a lightning rod for unrest in the southeast.<\/p>\n
Omotosho added that Kanu could not claim he had been denied a fair trial as he had repeatedly declined to present a defence despite being urged to do so.<\/p>\n
Kanu’s arrest and extraordinary rendition from Kenya in 2021, and his prolonged detention have deepened regional tensions and rekindled separatist sentiments among the predominantly Igbo people of southeastern Nigeria.<\/p>\n
A 1967 attempt by the region to secede as the Republic of Biafra triggered a three-year civil war that killed more than 1 million people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Nigerian federal high court has set a November 20 date to issue its judgment in separatist leader Nnamdi Kanu’s terrorism case, after Kanu refused for the sixth time to enter a defence against government allegations that he led an outlaw group fighting to separate the southeastern region off from the rest of Nigeria. Kanu, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11501,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,33,1129,27],"tags":[175,1198],"class_list":["post-18522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-politics","category-security","category-west-africa","tag-nigeria","tag-nnamdi-kanu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}