Please this is a throwback, where court confirmed that IPOB is not an unlawful group as the army claims. Date 2 March 2017 Please read & Share widely
ABUJA – THE Abuja Division of the Federal High Court, yesterday, struck-out six of the 11-count criminal charge the Federal Government preferred against the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Mr. Nnamdi Kanu and three other pro-Biafra agitators.
The court, in a ruling delivered by Justice Binta Nyako, also said the fact that IPOB was not an organisation registered in Nigeria did not make it an illegal society. “It may be true that IPOB is not registered in Nigeria, but does that make it an illegal organisation?”, the judge queried.
Justice Nyako held that the Federal Government failed to prove that IPOB, allegedly managed by Kanu and his co-defendants — Chidiebere Onwudiwe, Benjamin Madubugwu and David Nwawuisi, is an unlawful society.
Justice Nyako said the six charges she struck out were not supported by the proof of evidence the prosecution adduced against the defendants, adding that none of the six charges established a prima-facie criminal case against the defendants.
Whereas the court branded some of the terminated charges as “hollow” and “scanty”, it however sustained five other charges against the defendants.
For instance, the court noted that the Federal Government failed to produce any evidence to support allegation in count nine of the charge that the 2nd defendant, Onwudiwe, as National Coordinator of IPOB and the 4th defendant, Nwawuisi, who was serving as MTN Field Maintenance Engineer in Enugu State, conspired to install Radio Biafra transmitters on MTN masts sited at Ogui Road near St. Michael Church, Enugu, having agreed for the payment and receipt of N150, 000.
So also was the allegation that Onwudiwe committed an act preparatory to an act of terrorism by carrying out research for the purpose of identifying and gathering improvised explosive devices, IEDs, making materials to be used against the Nigerian security operatives carrying out their lawful duties.
According to Justice Nyako, the Federal Government ought to have charged Onwudiwe before a Magistrate Court over his alleged intention to commit an act of terrorism.
She said the government did not establish any ingredient of crime in its allegation that Kanu had between March and April 2015, imported into Nigeria, a radio transmitter known as TRAM 50L and kept it in a container that was left in custody of the 3rd defendant, Madubugwu, at Ubuluisiuzor in Ihiala LGA of Anambra State.
