Appeal Court Rejects Kanu’s Bid to Challenge IPOB Proscription

The Court of Appeal has dismissed an application by Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), seeking to challenge the group’s proscription. In a decision rendered on May 30 and seen on June 12, the court ruled that Kanu’s application, filed by his lawyer Alloy Ejimakor, was procedurally flawed.

Kanu aimed to appeal a January 18, 2018, ruling by the late Justice Abdu Kafarati of the Federal High Court in Abuja. This ruling upheld an earlier ex-parte order from September 20, 2017, which designated IPOB as a terrorist organization.

Kanu argued that because the federal government used the proscription order to charge him with terrorism-related offenses, he should be considered an interested party in the pending appeal by IPOB against the proscription.

However, the Court of Appeal, led by Justice Hamma Barka, held that Kanu should have first sought permission to appeal from the Federal High Court, as required by Order 6 Rule 4 of the Court of Appeal Rules 2021. Justice Barka stated, “The failure to seek leave from the lower court renders the application incompetent.”

The initial order by Justice Kafarati had declared IPOB’s activities as acts of terrorism, leading to the group’s proscription across Nigeria, especially in the South-East and South-South regions. Despite IPOB’s subsequent attempts to overturn the proscription, Justice Kafarati reaffirmed the order in January 2018.

IPOB appealed this ruling, marking the case as CA/A/214/2018, and Kanu sought to join this appeal as an interested party, which the Court of Appeal has now struck down.