, Nnamdi Kanu, Aloy Ejimakor){kind=link}
Legal consultant to the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, Aloy Ejimakor, has compared his client’s insistence on self-representation to the approach once taken by the late Premier of the Old Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo.
Ejimakor, who spoke with our correspondent yesterday, said Kanu’s decision to dispense with his legal team was affecting the speed at which his appeal against his life sentence is being processed.
“MNK has not filed his appeal yet because he has refused to hire lawyers. You know he disengaged us as his lawyers, so we now act in the capacity of a consultant. I am a consultant to him,” Ejimakor said.
“I don’t know why he does not want a lawyer, but I believe it is because he is a great man. Many great men are like that. They believe you can’t present their case like they can themselves. Even Awolowo refused to hire lawyers in his time. MNK wants to represent himself, and there are about four or five processes he has to follow to file the appeal before the Appellate Court.”
The legal consultant also threw his weight behind Kanu’s fresh request for a transfer from the Sokoto Correctional Centre to a custodial facility within proximity to Abuja.
He added, “The court already said he can’t be in Kuje prison, so that is fine, but he needs to be closer to Abuja, so if the court will grant his motion to be transferred to Suleja prison or Keffi. To me, there is nothing special about any prison in Nigeria. They are all the same, but MNK needs to be close to Abuja.”
Kanu had dismissed his legal team, led by former Attorney General of the Federation, Kanu Agabi (SAN), opting to handle his defence personally during his trial.
On November 20, a Federal High Court in Abuja convicted him on seven counts of terrorism-related offences filed by the Federal Government and handed him a life sentence.
He was later moved to the Sokoto Custodial Centre over security concerns following repeated breaches at the Kuje facility.
Dissatisfied with the arrangement, Kanu filed a motion before Justice James Omotosho, praying to be relocated to a facility closer to Abuja.
The application, personally signed by him, seeks his transfer to either Suleja or Keffi.
In the motion, he urged the court to deem the application as moved in his absence and compel the Federal Government or the Nigerian Correctional Service to effect his relocation.
He argued that being held more than 700 kilometres away from Abuja had made it impossible for him to prepare his notice and record of appeal, despite having eight grounds listed in the motion marked FHC/ABJ/CR/383/2015.
He maintained in the application that his close relatives, associates and legal consultants, all based in Abuja were unable to offer necessary assistance.
“The applicant’s continued detention in Sokoto renders his constitutional right to appeal impracticable, occasioning exceptional hardship and potentially defeating the said right, in violation of Section 36 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended),” the motion stated.
Kanu insisted that only a transfer to a custodial facility within the Federal Capital Territory’s environs would allow him to properly pursue his appeal.