Leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, has formally written to the Chief Justice of Nigeria and President of the Court of Appeal, asking for his cases to be listed.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, endorsed on behalf of the Okwu-Kanu Family by Prince Emmanuel Kanu, he informed Nigerians and the international community that Kanu has now written separately to the Chief Justice of Nigeria and the President of the Court of Appeal requesting the immediate listing and hearing of his two pending cases.
The family observed a lack of willingness by the Federal Government to join issues in either proceeding, while Kanu remains in detention serving a life sentence.
The Okwu-Kanu Family asked the Nigerian judiciary to show the same urgency when his freedom is at stake that it showed when the Federal Government wanted to stop his release.
They recalled that on 13 October 2022, 14 days before Kanu’s release, the Court of Appeal delivered its final judgment discharging Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and quashing the criminal counts against him.
He said: “It was an acquittal-equivalent discharge. The Federal Government refused to release him”.
According to them, on 28 October 2022—barely two weeks later—the Federal Government had filed, listed, argued and obtained a civil stay of execution from a differently constituted panel of the same Court of Appeal, even though the criminal appeal had already been finally determined and the Court was functus officio.
This, they said, stopped Kanu from enjoying the liberty granted by his acquittal-equivalent discharge.
The family expressed regret that in fourteen days, the machinery of the Court of Appeal moved from an acquittal-equivalent discharge to a civil stay that kept Kanu in detention.
He said: “The criminal appeal had already been finally determined. The Court was functus officio. Yet a differently constituted panel was assembled and civil procedure was deployed to restrain liberty arising from a concluded criminal proceeding”.
While Kanu urged the Chief Justice of Nigeria or the President of the Court of Appeal to decide either case in his favour, he appealed that the cases be placed before the appropriate panels and heard.
He said: “If the Federal Government believes the Supreme Court remittal was lawful, let it appear and defend it. If it believes the conviction and life sentence are lawful, let it file its papers and defend them. But silence and delay cannot become substitutes for adjudication”
The Okwu-Kanu Family thereby demanded the Supreme Court to list and hear the pending proceeding challenging the remittal judgment of 15 December 2023.
They also urged the Court of Appeal to list and hear Kanu’s appeal against his conviction and life sentence without further delay.
While asking the Federal Government to come before the courts and defend the judicial outcomes upon which Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s continued detention depends.
He said: “To our knowledge, never before in Nigeria has a civil procedural rule been deployed in this manner to deny liberty to a person following an acquittal-equivalent discharge. Mazi Nnamdi Kanu appears to be the first and only person subjected to it”.
According to them, Kanu commenced proceedings before the Supreme Court on 7 November 2025, challenging the legality of the Supreme Court’s remittal judgment of 15 December 2023.