The case is a spillover of Nnamdi Kanu’s year-long pen-and-ink battle with the UK government over his detention in Nigeria.
, Nnamdi Kanu, has lost an appeal in a legal action he filed against the United Kingdom government concerning his detention in Nigeria.
The Court of Appeal affirmed the High Court’s verdict and dismissed Mr Kanu’s appeal on 7 July, ruling that it could not interfere in the decision of the UK government on the IPOB leader’s detention and conditions in Nigeria. “Here the Respondent has given information about the steps which have been taken on Mr Kanu’s behalf; and has explained why he is unwilling to make public statements. The real complaint in this case is substantive rather than procedural,” the judgement read.The case that eventually made its way to the UK courts is a fallout of irreconcilable differences between the UK’s Foreign Secretary and Mr Kanu on the appropriate steps to take over his arrest and alleged maltreatment in Nigerian custody.
The tone of the letters sent by Mr Kanu’s legal team became more confrontational with each response of the office of the Foreign Secretary detailing the steps the government had taken to provide assistance to Mr Kanu. The office insisted that it would continue to handle the matter as it considered best appropriate.Two of the letters by the Foreign Secretary stood out in forming the basis for the legal action filed by Mr Kanu’s legal team last year.
“That view is subject to reassessment in light of changing information and evidence available to her. There is no obligation on the Secretary of State to share that view, the Secretary of State does not consider that it would be appropriate to do so and the Claimant could not have had any legitimate expectation that this would occur,” part of the correspondence read.
In another occasion in October and November 2021, FCDO officials raised Mr Kanu’s case with Nigerian Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials and the SSS, according to correspondences quoted in the UK Court of Appeal’s judgement. The UK government officials’ behind-the-scenes engagements with the Nigerian government continued in 2022. But they yielded no result.
Again, on 21 January 2022, the British High Commissioner, Catriona Laing, brought up the same issues during a meeting with the President Buhari’s Chief of Staff, Mr Gambari. On 1 March 2022, Ms Ford raised the case with the Kenyan High Commissioner to London, again requesting a response to the notes verbale from Kenya.All of these explanations did not go down well with Mr Kanu’s lawyers, who continued to express their displeasure in the series of letters they exchanged with the FCDO.
The judge, David Bean, delivering the lead decision of the court’s three-member panel, acknowledged that there was a limit to which the Foreign Secretary could go to help Mr Kanu while proceedings were still going on against him in Nigeria. “But I do not think that we can say, particularly where the Federal Court of Appeal has itself granted a stay pending an appeal to the Supreme Court, that the appeal must be treated as manifestly unfounded.“I consider, therefore, that it is not irrational for the Foreign Secretary to refrain from reaching a firm view while the matter is still properly before the Nigerian courts.”
He and his IPOB, already designated as a terrorist organisation in Nigeria, are seeking the secession of an independent Biafra nation comprising the five Igbo-dominated South-east states from Nigeria. Details of what took him to Kenya remain unclear, but his arrest and transfer to Nigeria have been described in subsequent court proceedings. It was noted in court records that Nigerian agents abducted Mr Kanu on 19 June 2021 at the Nairobi International Airport, and held him in Kenya for about eight days. While in detention in Kenya, Mr Kanu, it was said, faced inhuman and degrading treatment., the UK Court of Appeal’s judgement stated, citing records of Nigerian courts.
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