The Court of Appeal on Wednesday fixed March 7, 2023, to hear an application filed by the leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu.
Mr Kanu is seeking to be joined in the appeal challenging the group’s proscription by the federal government.
The IPOB leader, on September 5, 2022, filed the joinder application as an interested party on January 18, 2018, the judgement of the Federal High Court in suit No: FHC/ABJ/CS/871/2017, that proscribed IPOB.
Although a hearing in the application was scheduled for Wednesday, the appellate court did not sit, and the matter was fixed until March 7, 2023.
Lead counsel for Mr Kanu, Chukwuma-Machukwu Ume, who filed the processes, said his client was appealing the trial court’s judgement, which was rendered without hearing from him.
Mr Kanu, who expressed dissatisfaction with the judgement, has proposed challenging it on appeal.
In his proposed grounds of appeal, he contended that the trial judge erred in law when he ruled that “The Attorney-General in his application ex parte exhibited documents showing the existence of a threat to national security by the Respondent/Applicant and I accordingly made the order.
“By the order of 20th September 2017 prescribing the Respondent/Applicant organisation am of the firm view that the right of the Applicant to private and family life freedom of expression, right to peaceful assembly and freedom of movement have not been infringed upon.
“I also hold that the Applicant’s right to a fair hearing has not been violated by the grant on the Exparte order.”
On this ground, Mr Ume argued that the ex parte order of proscription of the appellant and its listing as a terrorist group violated the applicant’s constitutional right to a fair hearing.
When the second respondent, consequent upon the said order declaring and proscribing the appellant as a terrorist group, arrested, detained, and is currently prosecuting the applicant on charges of terrorism and as a member/leader of the appellant on six (6) count charges solely predicated on the said order pending on appeal.
Charging the applicant with the offences enumerated above, which are wholly predicated on the said ex parte order, and upon which the applicant was not on notice, violated the applicant’s constitutional rights.
This includes, particularly, his right to a fair hearing.
In addition, he stated that the trial court misdirected itself in law and thus occasioned a grave miscarriage of justice that has adversely affected the applicant.
