Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), has filed a lawsuit in Kenya challenging his extradition to Nigeria.
According to court documents seen by our correspondent, the pro-Biafra activist’s brother; Kingsley Kanunta, filed a lawsuit on his behalf.
Kanu claimed that his detention in Kenya and his deportation to Nigeria in June were unlawful in his suit filed by Luchiri and Company Advocates.
Kenya’s Interior CS, Director of Immigration, Director of Criminal Investigations, OCPD Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, and Attorney General are cited as respondents.
Nigerian officials stated on June 29 that Kanu had been brought back to stand trial after jumping bail and fleeing in 2017.
Nnamdi Kanu was in Kenya for “Indigenous People of Biafra-related work,” and to seek medical assistance for a heart problem, according to the appeal.
It was also established that the agitator landed at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in May on an East African tourist visa from Kigali, Rwanda.
Nnamdi Kanu was also believed to have gone to the airport on June 19 to pick up someone but never returned to his Kitale Lane apartment, Purple Haze Apartments.
“The subject is believed to have been apprehended at the airport on June 19, 2021, and unlawfully detained for several days after which he was illegally and stealthily extradited to Nigeria without his British passport in utter-non-compliance with laid down processes of laws in Kenya,” according to the petition.
The petition claimed, criticizing Kanu’s extradition to Nigeria as “the subject (Kanu) is a British citizen resident in the United Kingdom.
“He formerly held Nigerian citizenship but renounced it in 2015. Consequently, his Nigerian passport was taken away from him by Nigerian authorities.”
It said Kanu’s extradition from Nairobi to Abuja in June was illegal under Kenya’s Extradition (Contiguous and Foreign Countries) Act, Chapter 76.
Kanu asked the court to declare his extradition “a violation of the fundamental rights and freedoms to equal protection of the law, human dignity, freedom and security, freedom of movement, fair administrative action, access to justice, the right to be represented in court and a fair hearing as guaranteed in the Constitution of Kenya”.
He also asked for an order awarding the defendants “exemplary and punitive damages” inflicted on the respondent “on account of their gross violation of the subject’s fundamental freedoms and rights as enumerated in the petition”
He also asked for a declaration that “detaining the subject without justification and without informing him of the reasons for the detention, holding him incommunicado in deplorable and inhumane conditions” constituted a violation of his constitutional rights.
The court was also urged “to issue an order compelling the respondents to furnish him with the designations and ranks of state officers, public officers, police officers, agencies and departments, institutions and organs of government involved in his extradition.”
