A human rights lawyer, Christopher Chidera, has said Nnamdi Kanu was convicted under a terrorism law that no longer exists in Nigeria.
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He argued that the case should not stand because the law used by the court had already been scrapped by the National Assembly.
Chidera said the issue concerns Kanu, the leader of IPOB, who was tried and convicted under the Terrorism Prevention Amendment Act of 2013.
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According to him, lawmakers repealed that law in 2022 when a new terrorism law was passed.
He explained that the repeal happened when the Terrorism Prevention and Prohibition Act replaced the earlier laws from 2011 and 2013. By law, any case still in court should have continued under the new legal framework.
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The lawyer accused the trial judge of relying on a repealed law despite acknowledging in the judgment that the old law had been removed. He said Nigerian law does not allow a court to punish anyone using legislation that has already been abolished.
Chidera added that the court claimed it was moving the case smoothly from the old law to the new one but failed to do so in practice. He insisted that Kanu ought to have been tried under the current terrorism law, not one that parliament had already set aside.
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