Justice or Vengeance: The Case of Nnamdi Kanu
On November 20, 2025, Nigeria sentenced a man to life in prison for words spoken from foreign soil—after illegally kidnapping him from Kenya, ignoring a UN ruling demanding his release, and prosecuting him under a law that no longer exists.
Just two days earlier, on November 18, Boko Haram co-founder Mamman Nur—responsible for over 2,000 deaths—was sentenced to just five years in prison.
In Nigeria today, words from London carry a heavier penalty than mass murder.
I do not defend the inflammatory language that became the pretext for this sham trial.
But let’s be honest: his real “crime” was boldly exposing the radical Islamic jihad consuming Nigeria—and the government’s symbiotic relationship with it. That message, once controversial, is now undeniable.
This case is not about Biafra or separation. Those are issues for another day.
It is about whether any dissident, journalist, or whistleblower in West Africa is safe from abduction, torture, and indefinite detention without due process.
It is further evidence of the brutal, lawless, totalitarian nature of this genocidal regime.
These facts are not disputed:
1) Kanu was seized in Kenya in 2021—not extradited, but illegally rendered.
• Kenyan High Court Justice Anthony Mrima (June 2025):“The abduction and rendition of Mr. Kanu was a blatant violation of his fundamental rights.”
• The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (Opinion 25/2022): “The deprivation of Mr. Kanu’s liberty is arbitrary… The appropriate remedy is his immediate release.”
2) The United States has never designated IPOB a terrorist organization.
• U.S. State Department (on record since 2017): “We do not consider IPOB a terrorist organization.”
3) He was charged under a repealed anti-terror law, with no savings clause for pending cases.
4) The group he leads was declared “terrorist” in an ex parte proceeding—no defense was heard. Multiple Nigerian courts have ruled aspects of that designation unconstitutional.
I have personally documented the bulldozing of IDP camps in Abuja, the systematic neglect that kills daily, and the theft of blood minerals that bankroll jihad.
Silencing witnesses—whether with bulldozers or life sentences—does not erase genocide. It guarantees its spread.
America once told the world that no nation can kidnap, disappear, and jail its critics while claiming to fight terrorism. Nigeria just did exactly that—and sentenced a man to life for exposing it.
Silence now is not diplomacy. It is endorsement.
