On Sunday, Aloy Ejimakor, the Lead Counsel representing Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), elucidated why he holds the belief that the Biafra agitator cannot receive a fair trial.
Ejimakor explained with Kanu can’t get a fair trial while he is detained by the Department of State Services, DSS.
He noted that a defendant can’t get fair trial if there is no equality of arms between him and the prosecutor.
Posting on X, Ejimakor wrote: “A defendant can never have a #FairTrial if there is no EQUALITY OF ARMS between him & the prosecutor. The truth is that this equality of arms will never happen whilst #MNK is detained at the DSS.”
Kanu has been in the custody of the DSS since 2021, when he was arrested in Kenya and forcefully brought back to Nigeria to continue his trial.
He was first arrested in 2015, in Lagos, shortly after he entered Nigeria on a visit and was later arraigned in 2016, alongside four others on offences bordering on treason.
However, the trial judge, Justice Binta Nyako, of the Abuja Federal High Court in 2017, admitted him to bail in the sum of N100 million and three sureties in like sum on health grounds to enable him prepare adequately for his trial.
The bail was however revoked in 2019 and a warrant of arrest issued against him, for jumping bail in late 2019 and abandoning his trial.
But Kanu has maintained that he did not jump bail but fled the country for his life after soldiers allegedly attacked his family’s home in Abia State, killing several persons in the process.
Although, Justice Nyako had at the resumed trial struck out eight out of the 15 counts in the amended charge filed against him by the Federal Government, she however refused to admit Kanu to another bail.
