The South-East Governors’ Forum’s proscription of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) was ruled unlawful, unconstitutional, and void by an Enugu state high court on Thursday.
The self-determination group IPOB was labelled “terrorists” by the FG after the South-East Governors Forum, led by former governor David Umahi of Ebonyi State, outlawed the organization and its operations in 2017.
Nonetheless, IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu petitioned the court to have the prescription reversed through the representation of Mr. Aloy Ejimakor.
Since IPOB is an organization “composed of citizens of Nigeria of the Igbo and other eastern Nigerian ethnic groups, professing the political opinion of self-determination,” Kanu asked the court to rule that IPOB’s proscription was unlawful.
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Kanu asked the court to declare his “arrest and consequent detention and prosecution as illegal, unlawful, unconstitutional and amounts to infringement of the applicant’s fundamental rights.”
He urged the court to make a declaration that “self-determination is not a crime and thus cannot be used as a basis to arrest, detain and prosecute the applicant.”
Then, pleading with the court, he asked for N8 billion in damages from the defendants “for the physical, mental, emotional, and psychological trauma he was subjected to.”
Judge Onovo concurred with Kanu and deemed the IPOB proscription “unconstitutional and illegal” in his ruling on Thursday, October 26.
In addition, the judge mandated that the FG apologize to Kanu in public through newspaper articles and pay him N8 billion in damages.
Addressing journalists shortly after the judgment, Kanu’s lawyer, Barr. Ejimakor, said, “We are grateful that justice has prevailed over this matter since 2017. The court has reaffirmed the hopes of the common man in the judiciary. You have saved thousands of lives.”