By SUNTV Global Channel | January 12, 2026
A member of the Mazi Nnamdi Kanu Defence Consortium, Barrister Christopher Chidera, has accused the Federal Government under President Bola Tinubu of committing what he described as a grave abuse of the law by prosecuting and convicting the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, under a terrorism law that had already been repealed by the National Assembly.
In a strongly worded statement issued on Monday, Chidera also criticised the National Judicial Council (NJC) and the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) for what he called their “disturbing silence” in the face of what he insists is an unlawful conviction and continued detention of Kanu.
According to the lawyer, Kanu was charged, tried and convicted under the Terrorism Prevention (Amendment) Act, 2013 (TPAA)—a law he said was scrapped in 2022 when Nigeria enacted a new terrorism legislation.
“The case of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is not as complicated as the Nigerian and British governments want the world to believe,” Chidera said.
“The National Assembly abolished the Terrorism Prevention (Amendment) Act, 2013, under which Nnamdi Kanu was charged and convicted. That law is dead. Yet, the trial judge pretended it was still alive and used it to jail him.”
Chidera argued that Nigerian law expressly forbids courts from relying on repealed statutes, citing Section 122(2)(a) of the Evidence Act, which, he said, bars judges from acting on non-existent laws.
He accused the judiciary of deliberately bending the law to secure a conviction.
“In 2022, Nigeria passed a new terrorism law and simultaneously scrapped the old ones from 2011 and 2013. Scrapped means dead. Dead laws cannot jail people,” he said.
“NBA knows this. NJC knows this. Judges and lawyers know this basic principle of law. Yet, they are silent, hoping propaganda will bury the truth.”
The lawyer further claimed that although the trial judge acknowledged that the 2013 law had been repealed, he failed to properly transition Kanu’s case to the new legislation.
“Old cases must move forward under the new law. Charges, trial procedures and punishment should come from the 2022 law. None of this happened,” Chidera said.
“He convicted and sentenced Nnamdi Kanu using a law Parliament had already buried. That is not justice; it is a deliberate misuse of judicial power.”
Chidera warned that allowing such a conviction to stand sets a dangerous precedent that threatens the rule of law and the rights of all Nigerians.
“If a court can resurrect a dead law to jail one man, then no Nigerian is safe. Parliament becomes irrelevant, and the Constitution becomes mere decoration,” he said.
“Today it is Kanu. Tomorrow it can be anyone. A court that convicts under a dead law is not doing justice; it is committing fraud in judicial robes.”
The Federal Government, the NJC and the NBA have yet to respond to the allegations as of the time of filing this report.
— SUNTV Global Channel
