HOPELESS JUSTICE. GUILTY OUT OF FEAR
It was a heart wrenching moment for me yesterday at the Federal High Court when I saw so many young people lined up for prosecution on allegation of being members of IPOB or supporting IPOB. So many of them informed me they had stayed more than 5 years in Wawa military barracks without contact with their families.
I managed to get a few contact phone number of their relatives. I called some. It was crying and thanking me for making efforts for them. I was not myself after that. Even those whose existence were denied under oath by the Federal Government Security Agencies were seen.
Those from Orlu, Orsu, Onitsha, Enugu, Aba, etc. I cried!!! Some dead!! Dead without their families knowing!! And yet some of them were ready to plead guilty not because they believe they are guilty but because of the promises of lighter punishment or fear of being returned to Wawa military barracks detention without hope of a trial for years!! Is this justice????
They are pleading guilty for fear of being returned to detention in a strange Northern land called Wawa in Kanji, Niger State. The land of the living dead!!!! What is the justice served???
#BarNnaemeka.
According to Adebayo, the SDP presidential candidate, Tinubu told them he would not amend the Electoral Act because it could allow his opponent to defeat him
BREAKING
The IPOB Nigeria confessing how they sold ESN created by Mazi Nnamdi Kanu to the South East governors.
You see the reason we collapsed ESN into Biafra Liberation Army and banned ESN?
Just listen to the confession of this criminal few days ago
General Oseni Braimah, General Idris Alkali, Brig. General M. Uba, General Rabe Abubakar - all killed by terrorists in a nation that was once called “the giant of Africa.”
This is the same nation that led combat operations stop wars in Liberia, Sierra Leone, etc. And how did the Commander in Chief reassure Nigerians in his Democracy Day speech? He “begged” terrorists to surrender.
If we don’t wake up now, we never will again.
How Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s self-representation flawed his conviction
By ALOY EJIMAKOR
Following the debriefing of his legal team led by Chief Kanu Agabi, SAN, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu firmly announced his intention to personally handle his own defense. The trial court accepted this waiver of counsel, asked if he wanted an assigned lawyer, noted his rejection, and then proceeded.
Now that the case lies on appeal, the deeper, central question the Court of Appeal must confront is this: Can a defendant facing charges that carry the death penalty legally waive his right to counsel under Nigerian law?
The short answer is no. In allowing Nnamdi Kanu to represent himself in a trial involving capital offenses, the learned trial judge unarguably committed a fatal fundamental error in law. Under the Nigerian criminal justice system, the right to legal representation in capital offenses is not a luxury the defendant can decline; it is a rigid and mandatory constitutional safeguard that the court has an absolute duty to enforce, even against the explicit wishes of the defendant.
At first glance, there exists an illusion of permissible self-representation that lies in Section 36(6)(c) of the Constitution which appears to sanction self-representation by stating that every person charged with a criminal offense is entitled to defend himself "in person or by legal practitioners of his own choice."
That may be so in misdemeanors or less severe felonies, where the choice to speak for oneself is a permitted prerogative. However, the Constitution does not operate in a vacuum. It is anchored on the ultimate pillar of fair hearing, and contemporary Nigerian criminal jurisprudence has long recognized that the gravity of capital offenses (where human life hangs in the balance) strips away the court's discretion to permit self-representation.
The statutory directive is enacted under the Administration of Criminal Justice Act which explicitly curtails the right to self-representation when the stakes are grave. Section 267(2) of the ACJA leaves no wiggle room for ambiguity when it provides that: "Where a defendant is charged with a capital offence or an offence punishable with life imprisonment and he is not represented by a legal practitioner, the court shall appoint a legal practitioner for his defence."
The operative word utilized in the above provisions is "shall". In statutory interpretation, it is an established canon that "shall" denotes a command; it imposes a mandatory duty, leaving zero room for judicial discretion or a defendant's personal whims.
Thus, when Kanu’s legal team stepped aside, Justice Omotosho’s question should not have been, "Do you want me to assign a lawyer to you?" Instead, the Judge should have immediately made an unyielding decision to appoint a lawyer for him. Why? Because Kanu’s refusal of counsel is invalid as a matter of law, pure and simple.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the presence of counsel in capital trials is a condition precedent to the validity of the trial. In Josiah v. State (1985), the apex court held that in capital offenses, a defendant must be represented by counsel at all stages of the trial. This was reaffirmed forcefully in Ganiyu v. State (2013), where the Supreme Court made it abundantly clear that a trial conducted for a capital offense without legal representation is a nullity, as its absence completely robs the trial court of its jurisdiction.
Granted that Justice Omotosho may have felt justified in forging ahead, given Kanu’s articulate disposition. Yet, as a matter of law, lay competence is not a substitute for counsel. A capital trial involves intricate rules of evidence, procedure, and navigation of highly complex constitutional and statutory frameworks unique to capital offenses trial.
So, by permitting Kanu to navigate this labyrinth alone, the court allowed a fundamental constitutional infraction that may very well void the entire outcome of the trial.
#AloyEjimakor.
Out of respect for the deceased, I pulled down this video of late Major General Rabe Abubakar, who in this interview trivialized the idea of Boko Haram having an open air celebration of Salah on Nigerian soil.
But on a second thought, I felt the urge to remind those like him who are right now towing the same path of intentionally denying and trivializing the stark realities of this rapidly spreading cancer called terrorism.
We must all realize there’s a limit to political correctness in the face of survival emergency, because in the end, no one is truly safe and no rank is really exempted.
May his soul rest in peace.
Ndigbo should guard and protect themselves and their communities from terror!sts.
Every Igbo person is advised not to involve the camera when doing the needful.
Self defense is a constitutional right.
We must defend ourselves.
Funny enough many Nigerians don't even know that they are at war with These fulanis terrorists that their so-called military are protecting while they are having a peace deal.💔
It's Not Longer A Business As Usually That's Why They Are Crying. Go And Get A Job Because A Jobless Human Beings Can't Fight For Freedom.....Free Money Is No Longer Coming Out...Our Deputy Prime Minister Dr. Ngozi Orabueze & USB Cabinet Members Has Taken Control! #USB29thNov2024
Peter Obi said there is no reason Nnamdi Kanu should be imprisoned, and some people got angry,
Yet your country rehabilitates terrorists. Hypocrites!
The only reason you are upset is because Nnamdi Kanu is an Igbo man.
The list of the OBAs that have either been kidnapped & allegedly killed by fulanis terrorists herders across yorubaland.
(11)~ in number,plus the recent one.
Yet, Igbos are their problem.
A Yoruba man with a brain intact,no bias,no paid to hate.
Tell Bini people to mind their Business, history have it that it was the former Oba of Benin that truncated the Aburi accord because of hatred for Biafra. It was him that convinced Fulanis to go against the Aburi accord. Today, they love @PeterObi. Fake love. 2023 is for Biafra
BREAKING:
Tell the two Monarchs to prepare a place for their lovely illegitimate son called the @officialABAT or they can fight against Biafra from where Fulani dumped them. Afonjas, over to you!
Herdsmen strike again.
2 Monarchs, Elesun of Esun Ekiti and Onimojo of Imojo Ekiti were shot dead today in Ekiti State.
The incident was said to have happened between Oke-Ako and Ipao-Ekiti in Ajoni Local Government Area of the state.
Sources, according to Oodua News, disclosed that another monarch, Alara of Ara in Ikole LG, however, narrowly escaped when the armed men accosted them and attempted to forcefully take them away.
“They were all travelling together. The armed herdsmen stopped them and rained bullets on them. They took their personal belongings and dragged their bodies into the bush,” Oodua News quoted a source as saying.
Also, School Children were reportedly Kidnapped in Eporo Ekiti, Emure LGA as the armed men ambushed a school bus.