The Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) was on Wednesday directed to pay a sum to the tune of N500 million as damages to the Leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, for forcefully abducting and renditioning him from Kenya in June last year.
The order came from a Federal High Court sitting in Umuahia through Justice Evelyn Anyadike, who equally declared Kanu’s extraordinary rendition from Kenya as illegal and a gross violation of his fundamental human rights.
It would be recalled that Kanu had through his lawyer, Aloy Ejimakor, confronted his “abduction and extraordinary rendition from Kenya without any court warrant”, and had demanded his restitution to his country of abode, Britain or Kenya where he was before the abduction on June 19, 2021.
Ejimakor further asked the judge to “redress the myriad of violations that came with his rendition, such as the torture, unlawful detention and the denial of the right to fair hearing which is required by law before anybody can be expelled from one country to the other.”
Kanu made a demand of N25 billion as damages for the gross violation of his rights and the torture he was subjected to both in Kenya and Nigeria.
But in its preliminary objections, the FG contended that the matter had already been entertained by the Abia High Court and that the said incident did not occur within the jurisdiction of the court.
However, the court struck out the preliminary objections, saying that where an incident occurred in two states, any Federal High Court in either of the states had jurisdiction over the matter, stressing that violation of Kanu’s rights began in Afaraukwu Umuahia and continued in Kenya.
Considering the prayer for damages, Justice Anyadike declared that Kanu had been “exposed to global ridicule which requires global cleansing.”
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