28/08/2026
MAZI NNAMDI KANU: Why I opposed trial when I was lead counsel
By: ALOY EJIMAKOR
This post summarizes one of the main reasons the legal team of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu (with me as Lead Counsel) successfully insisted on NO TRIAL between February 2024 and March 2025.
It will be recalled that the charges brought against Mazi Kanu plainly stated that all the terrorism-related offenses were based on broadcasts he allegedly made between 2018 and 2021 when he was not in Nigeria but was known to be in either Britain or Kenya.
Recall also that the charges were initially brought under the Terrorism Prevention (Amendment) Act 2013 (TPAA 2013), which had granted the Federal High Court extraterritorial or long-arm jurisdiction to try offenses committed abroad, “regardless of whether or not such act (or broadcast, as in this case) is an offense in the foreign country where it occurred”.
This provision of the law changed dramatically in 2022 when the TPAA 2013 was repealed and replaced by the Terrorism Prevention and Prohibition Act 2022 (TPPA 2022) which changed “regardless of whether or not the act is an offense in the foreign country where it occurred” to “provided that the act constitutes an offence under the law of the foreign state where the act occurred”.
In other words, if the broadcasts made by Mazi Kanu from either Britain or Kenya are not considered a crime in those countries, extraterritorial jurisdiction cannot lie with the Federal High Court. In legal parlance, this is known as the “doctrine of double criminality”. So, without mentioning the foreign locale of the broadcasts, how can the Federal High Court ascertain whether or not the broadcasts are considered crimes in such locales?
Recall also that the case turned a full circle backwards when the Supreme Court, in December 2023, overturned the Court of Appeal discharge of October 2022. Accordingly, the Supreme Court sent the case directly to Justice Binta Murtala-Nyako to continue the trial, which she commenced in February 2024.
It was at this point (February 2024) that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu appointed me Lead Counsel.
So, it came to pass that when I examined the terrorism-related charges issuing from the broadcasts, I discovered that none of them mentioned the foreign location where they were made, even as they were alleged to have been made between 2018 and 2021 when Mazi Kanu was not in Nigeria.
For this reason, we took the firm position that Mazi Kanu cannot be tried by the Federal High Court on charges that did not disclose the foreign country where the broadcasts that constituted the offenses were made.
To be sure, clearly stating the locale of the broadcasts is a critical element of the offense, because it is only when the locale (Britain or Kenya) is known, that it can be determined if the broadcasts “constituted an offence under the law of the foreign state”. Again, this is strictly required under the new law, but is absent in the old (repealed) law under which the government predicated Mazi Kanu’s trial.
So, when the case came up for trial in February 2024, we vigorously raised objections to jurisdiction of the Federal High Court to proceed with the trial on the basis that the court cannot assert jurisdiction without first determining that the broadcasts “constituted an offence under the law of the foreign state” (namely Britain or Kenya) where they were presumably made between 2018 and 2021 when Mazi Kanu was universally known to be in both countries but not in Nigeria.
To be sure, had the foreign locations been mentioned and the Court determined (by mere reference to the laws of the foreign nations) that the broadcasts are not considered a crime in those nations, that would have been the end of the trial, because jurisdiction shall not lie, even if the broadcasts are somehow considered a crime in Nigeria. This is black letter, not my legal opinion.
Suffice it to say that, in the course of time, Justice Murtala-Nyako overruled our objections, whereupon we appealed to the Court of Appeal, and applied for indefinite adjournment of the trial until the Court of Appeal settles the preeminent question of jurisdiction.
It is relevant to mention that while this legal skirmishing lasted, the government could have easily ended it by simply amending the charges to reflect the name of the foreign country from where the broadcasts were made, but it did not. Why? Because it could not.
Assumedly, the government had consulted both British and Kenyan laws on point and discovered (to their dismay) that such broadcasts are NOT considered a crime in both countries. Thus, any mentioning of those countries as the locale of the broadcasts would have ended the trial by self-destructing the jurisdiction of the Federal High Court.
So, the government was stuck, and it strategically decided to press on under the old law that accorded jurisdiction to the Federal High Court, hoping that some Judge would be convinced to play along.
Ultimately, the case was transferred from Justice Murtala-Nyako in March 2025 and assigned to Justice James Omotosho. And it was at this point that my role as Lead Counsel affirmatively ended when Mazi Kanu appointed a new Lead Counsel.
You can now see the main reason why Mazi Nnamdi Kanu confidently challenged the Court to “show me the law”. It is also the same reason (plus more) that his conviction is liable to be overturned on appeal, or by a sound political decision, sooner than later.
