The Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, has claimed the Nigerian government admitted that Justice James Omotosho of the Abuja Federal High Court acted without jurisdiction in convicting its leader, Nnamdi Kanu, and sentencing him to life imprisonment.
IPOB made the claim in a statement released by its spokesman, Emma Powerful, to announce the commencement of proceedings in the appeal filed by Kanu to challenge his conviction.
The brief of argument in the case was filed on Friday at the Court of Appeal, Abuja Division. The Nigerian government has, reportedly, also filed its cross-appeal in response to Kanu’s brief of argument in the appeal.
Justice Omotosho convicted Kanu on terrorism charges, filed against him by the Nigerian government, in a judgment delivered on November 20, 2025. Kanu is currently serving his life sentence in Sokoto prison.
In the statement it released after Friday’s proceedings, IPOB said the Nigerian government, in the cross-appeal it filed in response to Kanu’s appeal, admitted that the Federal High Court presided by Justice Omotosho convicted and sentenced Kanu without jurisdiction.
“The judgment delivered by Justice James Omotosho on 20 November 2025 has created a crisis far bigger than the fate of Onyendu Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. It has created a crisis of institutional credibility.
“What makes the situation extraordinary is that the Federal Government itself has now supplied one of the most devastating pieces of evidence against the judgment.
“In its Cross-Appeal as argued in the Brief of Argument filed today (Friday), the Respondent (Federal Republic of Nigeria) expressly admitted that James Omotosho J, “acted without jurisdiction” when it imposed the sentence of life imprisonment instead of death penalty.
“The Federal Government has effectively fired a cannon through the heart of the judgment it is simultaneously attempting to defend.
“A court either possesses jurisdiction throughout the proceedings or it does not. That principle has governed Nigerian law for decades.
“If the trial court lacked jurisdiction to impose sentence, as the Federal Government now asserts, then the same trial court lacked jurisdiction to produce the conviction from which the sentence supposedly arose. The conviction and sentence are juridically inseparable. One cannot survive without the other,” IPOB said.
Alleging that the Federal Government has inadvertently converted itself into a witness against its own judgment, IPOB said the development has created danger for the Nigerian judiciary.
It added, “Any attempt by the Court of Appeal to affirm the conviction while simultaneously accepting the Federal Government’s admission regarding jurisdiction would require the creation of an entirely new species of criminal jurisprudence unknown to Nigeria, unknown to the Commonwealth, and unknown to the common-law world.
“The court would effectively be saying that a trial court can lack jurisdiction and yet validly convict.”
The separatist group stated that the Nigerian government has created a problem for itself in the alleged attempt to use the invocation of the death penalty to intimidate Kanu into renouncing Biafra restoration. “They instead shot themselves in the foot,” IPOB said.
Kanu and his lawyers had, in kicking against Justice Omotosho’s judgment, insisted that the conviction was based on a repealed law.
With the commencement of the appeal, the group declared that the Nigerian judiciary is on trial.
The statement said, “today our leader and prophet filed the long awaited appeal following Omotosho’s conviction judgment. The issue before the Court of Appeal in the case of Onyendu Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is no longer merely about one man.
“It is now about whether the Nigerian judicial system is prepared to remain a legal institution or whether it is prepared to openly repudiate its own foundational principles. Nigerian judiciary, from the Supreme Court to the lowest in the land is effectively on trial before the whole world starting from today.”
According to IPOB, the appeal has assumed significance far beyond the immediate parties involved in the case – Nnamdi Kanu and the Nigerian government.
The statement added, “The Court of Appeal is no longer deciding merely whether Onyendu Mazi Nnamdi Kanu should be convicted. It is deciding whether long-established principles of Nigerian criminal law still mean what they say.
“It would have to explain how a conviction can stand when the trial judge himself acknowledged that without a written law there can be no conviction. TPAA was not a written law in force in Nigeria as at 20 November 2025.
“The Nigerian judiciary now stands at a crossroads. One path preserves the integrity of constitutional government. The other path requires the abandonment of principles repeatedly proclaimed by Nigerian courts over many decades.
“The Federal Government has, in effect, informed the Court of Appeal that the trial court lacked jurisdiction. The question now becomes unavoidable: If the trial court lacked jurisdiction, what exactly is left to affirm?”
IPOB called on all defenders of constitutionalism, both within Nigeria and internationally, to closely observe proceedings in the appeal.
