“As declared by court yesterday, No Nigeria Court has the jurisdiction to try him again. He must go home a free person. I will respond to Malami today” – declared Barrister Ejiofor following the court judgment that discharged Mazi Nnamdi Kanu of all charges leveled against him by the federal government of Nigeria.
The Attorney General of the federation, Malami had retorted that the Court judgment which discharged Nnamdi Kanu did not acquit him or free him. The attorney general indicated interest in continuing the legal trial of Nnamdi Kanu.
But one of the senior members of the Nnamdi Kanu legal team, Barrister Ejimakor disagreed with Malami’s interpretation of the Appeal Court judgment. He called Malami’s interpretation “flatly wrong”.
Hear him
The position of AGF Malami on the Court of Appeal judgment regarding Nnamdi Kanu is flatly wrong and it is perverse to boot
If the FG refuses or stalls on releasing Kanu solely because it desires to levy further or new charges, it will amount to a burgeoning holding charge which is impermissible in our jurisprudence.
Further, no new charges can stick against Kanu because, in the present circumstance, the extraordinary rendition is an abiding factor that has created a permanent barrier to his prosecution.
Keep in mind that the extant trial of Kanu could never have proceeded had he not been illegally renditioned. So, it is not legally possible to lose jurisdiction in the extant charges and at once obtain jurisdiction in the next round of charges.
The judgment of the Court of Appeal has therefore grandfathered a continuing lack of prosecutorial jurisdiction that will, in the interim, be very hard to overcome.
Thus, before the levying of any new charges can have a toga of legality or chances of conferring prosecutorial jurisdiction, Kanu has to be released first. Anything to the contrary will be nugatory
