UPDATE: Let him go home, Nnamdi Kanu’s lawyers react to Court’s verdict

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mike Ozekhome, has said the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu should be released immediately after his discharge by the Court of Appeal in Abuja on Thursday.

Ozekhome, who is also a senior counsel to Kanu said the separatist group’s leader is now a free man, while speaking on Channels Television’s News At 10, on Thursday.

A three-member panel of the appellate court, led by Hanatu Sankey, held that the federal government contravened the Terrorism Act, Extradition Act and also breached international conventions and treaties guiding extraditions, thus, violating the rights of Kanu.

Reacting to the verdict, the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami said the case is not over for Kanu saying the court did not acquit him.

“For the avoidance of doubt and by the verdict of the Court, Kanu was only discharged and not acquitted,” Malami said.

In a counter-reaction to Malami’s submission, Ozekhome said the Department of State Services (DSS) should let Kanu go home immediately after his lawyers present a certified true copy of the judgment.

Ozekhome said, “What it (the ruling) means is that Nnamdi Kanu was discharged today. That means he is a free man.

“And he should be allowed to go home tomorrow by the time we get a certified true copy of the judgment, we serve it to the Office of the Attorney-General and the DSS to allow Nnamdi Kanu go. Let my people go.”

In a similar reaction, Kanu’s special counsel, Aloy Ejimakor on Friday in a statement made available to vanguard described the AGF’s position as “flatly wrong and it is perverse to boot.”

“If the Federal Government refuses or stalls on releasing Kanu solely because it desires to levy further or new charges, it will amount to a burgeoning holding charge which is impermissible in our jurisprudence.

“Thus, before the levying of any new charges can have a toga of legality or chances of conferring prosecutorial jurisdiction, Kanu has to be released first. Anything to the contrary will be nugatory,” Ejimakor added.