Abuja — November 10, 2025 | Dalena Reporters
The detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, has filed a new motion before the Supreme Court of Nigeria to reopen the judgment delivered on December 15, 2023, which overturned an earlier decision discharging him and ordered him back to trial under terrorism charges.
According to a public statement issued by his legal team and signed by Barrister Njoku Jude Njoku, the December 2023 judgment was “per incuriam” and represented a conscious judicial error that “destroyed the rule of law” by relying on a statute that had been repealed before the decision.
The lawyers contend that the panel of five justices — led by Justice Garba Lawal and joined by Justices Emmanuel Agim, Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, Tijjani Abubakar and Ibrahim Musa Saulawa — knowingly remanded Kanu for trial under the now-defunct Terrorism (Prevention) (Amendment) Act 2013, which was repealed and replaced by the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act 2022 on May 12, 2022 — more than a year before the Supreme Court’s ruling. Because the law under which he was charged no longer existed, the legal team argues, the December decision was a “jurisdictional nullity” and cannot stand. They further claim the ruling violated Section 122 of the Evidence Act 2011 (requiring judicial notice of repealed statutes) and Section 36(9) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (prohibition against double jeopardy). The defence contends that the earlier Court of Appeal decision (October 2022) that discharged Kanu should remain final, and by ordering a retrial, the Supreme Court eroded the constitutional shield that protection provided. The motion seeks a fresh hearing, setting aside the December judgment and restoring the earlier discharge.
Kanu’s legal team insists the new application is not only about their client’s liberty but concerns the broader integrity of Nigeria’s judiciary: “If a dead law can still be used to prosecute citizens, and a discharge can be reversed at will, then the rule of law is hollowed out,” the filing states. It remains to be seen how the Supreme Court will respond to the motion and whether the government will oppose or consent to the review.
By Dalena Reporters — Legal Affairs Desk