The Indigenous People of Biafra says Nigeria's government has unwittingly admitted that the trial judge lacked authority to convict their leader, Nnamdi Kanu. IPOB made the claim through its spokesman, Emma Powerful, after fresh court proceedings on Friday.
Justice James Omotosho sentenced Kanu to life imprisonment on November 20, 2025. Kanu now sits in Sokoto prison serving that sentence.
IPOB's statement centers on Nigeria's response to Kanu's appeal at the Court of Appeal in Abuja. In that response, the government acknowledged a critical jurisdictional problem, according to the group.
"The Federal Government itself has now supplied one of the most devastating pieces of evidence against the judgment," IPOB stated. The government admitted Omotosho "acted without jurisdiction" when imposing the life sentence instead of death, they claimed.
IPOB sees this as a fatal blow to the entire conviction. "A court either possesses jurisdiction throughout the proceedings or it does not," the group's statement read.
If the trial court lacked jurisdiction to sentence, IPOB argues, it also lacked jurisdiction to convict. The conviction and sentence cannot be separated legally.
According to IPOB, the government has turned itself into a witness against its own case. "The Federal Government has effectively fired a cannon through the heart of the judgment it is simultaneously attempting to defend," they said.
This creates an unprecedented legal crisis, IPOB contends. Affirming the conviction while accepting the jurisdiction admission would create "an entirely new species of criminal jurisprudence unknown to Nigeria, unknown to the Commonwealth, and unknown to the common-law world."
Court of Appeal judges would essentially be saying a trial court can lack jurisdiction yet still validly convict. Such reasoning violates fundamental legal principles, IPOB argues.
IPOB believes the government created this problem for itself. The group says officials attempted to intimidate Kanu by invoking the death penalty but instead weakened their own position.
"They instead shot themselves in the foot," IPOB declared.
Kanu and his legal team have consistently challenged the November 2025 judgment. They've maintained the conviction relied on a law that Nigeria had already repealed.
The case now proceeds through the appellate system. Both Kanu's brief and Nigeria's cross-appeal were filed at the Abuja Division on Friday.
For IPOB, the government's own legal filing represents a breakthrough in their defense strategy. What was meant to strengthen Nigeria's case may have instead provided the foundation for overturning it entirely.
