The detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, has appealed to the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) to include his ongoing legal ordeal as part of the deliberations at its 2025 Annual General Conference currently taking place in Enugu State.
In a letter dated August 18, 2025, and received at the NBA’s National Secretariat on August 22, Kanu urged the association to address what he described as “miscarriages of justice” in his trial. The letter, titled “Re: Miscarriages of Justice in the Case of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu,” was personally signed by him and later circulated to journalists in Abuja.
Kanu, who described the NBA as the guardian of the legal profession and the defender of the rule of law, argued that the association could no longer afford to look away. He alleged that his prosecution represented a “judicial lynching” rather than a fair trial, stressing that Nigerian courts had been turned into “arenas of impunity.”
Quoting the principle of fair hearing, “audi alteram partem,” Kanu said his right to justice had been “shattered beyond recognition.” He cited several legal provisions he believes have been violated in his case, including Section 36 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), Sections 169 and 293 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (2015), and international instruments such as the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Article 7) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Article 14).
He further claimed that multiple courts and human rights authorities had ruled in his favour or recognised the injustices against him. These, he said, include the Nigerian Court of Appeal, the Federal High Court, the Kenyan High Court, the United Nations Special Rapporteur, and the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which he noted confirmed that he was abducted, tortured, and subjected to extraordinary rendition from Kenya in violation of both domestic and international law.
Kanu accused three judges of specific infractions in his case and called on the NBA to investigate the alleged misconduct, issue a report, and take a firm stance against the misuse of civil procedures in criminal matters. He urged the association to reaffirm that no Nigerian should be detained through abduction or tried under repealed laws, stressing that such steps were necessary to restore public confidence in the judiciary.
“This case is not only about me. It is about whether Nigeria’s judiciary is bound by law or by impunity,” Kanu wrote, insisting that silence by the NBA would amount to complicity.
Concluding his letter, he invoked the Latin maxim “Qui tacet consentire videtur” (he who is silent is taken to agree), warning that failure by the NBA to act would further erode Nigeria’s legal foundations.
