Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, has tackled Justice Binta Nyako of an Abuja Federal High Court.
Kanu who confronted Binta on Monday, challenged the judge to either restore his bail conditions or order his release from detention.
The IPOB leader noted that Nyako cannot review, reopen, or revisit a matter she recused herself from because she lacked jurisdiction.
In a statement issued by Kanu’s lead counsel, Aloy Ejimakor, after Monday’s sitting was adjourned “sin die,” he said Nyako’s exit from the case as the trial judge was a “judicial event” that emanated from the court order she made on September 24, 2024.
Ejimakor said a plain reading of the order shows that her Lordship graciously consented to the recusal, and that alone amounts to something.
According to Ejimakor: “To be sure, her Lordship cannot review, reopen, or revisit the matter of her recusal because she no longer possesses jurisdiction and has become functus officio. The following cases (in quotes) are illustrative:
“Now, the principle of functus officio is not just a principle of procedure only. It is more of a question of jurisdiction and competence of a court of law, such as the trial court, to give a judgment and thereafter revisit it or conduct further post-judgment proceedings. The question, therefore, is whether a court can competently assume jurisdiction over a case it has concluded?
“The said order is extant and subsisting and was never appealed. So, to this day, it remains valid in all ramifications, such that strains the legality of the hearing conducted before the same judge today, February 10.
“In summation, we make bold to say that the ball is firmly and exclusively in the court of the Federal Government, in the sense that since it has proved unable to bring Mazi Nnamdi Kanu to trial within a reasonable time, the next best thing (which is also lawful and constitutional) is to end this whole saga honorably by releasing Mazi Nnamdi Kanu either through restoration of his bail or otherwise — by discontinuing a case that has been burdened by the indices of internecine politics from its inception ten years ago in 2015.”
