After a ten-year trial, Justice James Omotosho of a Federal High Court sentenced Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), to life imprisonment on Thursday.
This judgment comes four years after Kanu was controversially arrested in Kenya and extradited to Nigeria.
He was subsequently charged with seven counts bordering on terrorism.
The judgment was delivered in Nnamdi Kanu’s absence after the IPOB leader caused a disruption by insisting that the verdict on the Federal Government’s terrorism charge could not be delivered.
Due to the ensuing drama, the presiding judge, Justice Omotosho, ordered security agents to bundle him out of the courtroom for “unruly behaviour.”
Justice Omotosho proceeded to state that Kanu’s broadcasts via Radio Biafra constituted acts of terrorism, as his rhetoric and intention were anchored on violence.
The judge also asserted that Kanu’s sit-at-home order in South-Eastern states amounted to terrorism, stressing that the order violated South-easterners’ freedom of movement.
Justice Omotosho maintained that the IPOB leader lacked the constitutional power to order people to sit at home.
According to him, from the evidence before the court, Kanu carried out preparatory terrorism via his broadcasts through which he order the killing of police officers and military officers.
The court said the IPOB leader is found guilty of committing acts of terrorism against the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Kanu was convicted of all seven counts preferred against him even though the IPOB leader had entered a ‘not-guilty’ plea to the charges.
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