Politics

Court frees leader of separatist group, IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu, after years of legal battle

Published

2 years ago

October 13, 2022

In Nigeria, the Court of Appeal sitting in the country’s capital, Abuja, has discharged and acquitted the embattled leader of the separatist group, Indigenous People of Biafra, (IPOB).

The three-man panel upheld the appeal of the detained leader of the proscribed IPOB and held that the Federal High Court lacks the jurisdiction to try Mr. Kanu on the grounds of his rendition to Nigeria which violates the protocol on extradition and the OAU convention.

The ruling says the Federal Government breached all local and international laws in the forceful rendition of Kanu to Nigeria thereby making the terrorism charges against him incompetent and unlawful.

Kanu was first arraigned on December 23, 2015, and was later granted bail on April 25, 2017. He was later arrested in Kenya and extradited for trial by the Federal government of Nigeria in June 2021.

The Nigerian Government failed to disclose the exact location Mr. Kanu was arrested; neither did the 15-count charge against him disclose the place, date, time, and nature of the alleged offenses before extraditing him.

He appealed in April in a suit marked CA/ABJ/CR/625/2022 and applied to be discharged and acquitted.

Recall that a federal court in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, had dismissed eight of the 15 terror charges against Kanu.

Nigeria has had a number of separatist agendas spring up since her political independence in 1960. The country as a result witnessed a civil war born out of secessionist agenda in 1967.

Yet the cry for self-determination amongst various ethnic-based groups has not ceased, in fact, it has been more amplified in the heterogeneous West African country since the current President Muhamadu Buhari came into power in 2015.

Related Topics:#IPOB #Nnamdi Kanu Featured

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Politics

Burkina Faso investigating reports of northern killings

Published

16 hours ago

April 28, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

A government spokesman has revealed that Burkina Faso is looking into reports that 223 people were killed by the Burkinabe army in two villages in the north in February.

The killing was first reported by the Human Rights Watch (HRW), causing a rift between the junta-led West African state and some foreign media that published the report. The HRW report released on Thursday said that the military had executed residents of Nodin and Soro, including at least 56 children, as part of a campaign against civilians suspected of working with jihadist terrorists. The report was based on interviews with witnesses, members of civil society, and other groups.

Rimtalba Jean Emmanuel Ouedraogo, a spokesman for the government, said that HRW’s claims were “peremptory” and that the junta was not unwilling to look into the claimed crimes.

“An investigation has been launched into the killings in Nodin and Soro,” Ouedraogo said in a late-evening statement, quoting a statement from a regional prosecutor on March 1.

Since Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger’s militaries took over in a series of coups from 2020 to 2023, violence in the area has gotten worse. This is because of the ten-year fight with Islamist groups related to Al Qaeda and Islamic State.

Attacks on Burkina Faso got much worse in 2023, with more than 8,000 people killed, according to the U.S.-based crisis-monitoring group ACLED.

Politics

S’Africa lengthens troop deployment in Mozambique, Congo DR

Published

3 days ago

April 26, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a speech that South Africa’s military would keep sending troops to Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which are both in the middle of wars.

The extension will leave 1,198 members of the South African National Defense Force (SANDF) in eastern Congo for an unknown amount of time. They are there as part of a United Nations peacekeeping force helping Congo fight rebel groups.

The statement also said that 1,495 members of the SANDF would keep working in Mozambique, where they have been since 2021 helping the government fight dangerous extremism in the north.

After two SANDF troops were killed and three were hurt by a mortar bomb in Congo in February, South Africa’s military operations abroad have been looked at more closely at home this year.

Meanwhile, the major opposition party in South Africa, the Democratic Alliance, said that Ramaphosa sent troops into a war zone without being ready.
Under the supervision of the UN, the SANDF has taken on many dangerous and difficult peacekeeping tasks over the years to help war-torn African countries stay stable and peaceful.

In 2003, South Africa was one of the first countries to send troops to Burundi to help the peace process. During the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) peacekeeping mission in 2000, the SANDF led attempts to stabilize the country’s politics, rebuild and improve infrastructure, and train DRC troops.