Nnamdi Kanu moved from DSS custody to Sokoto prison
The President Bola Tinubu-led government has transferred detained Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader, Nnamdi Kanu, from the Department of State Services (DSS) facility in Abuja to a correctional centre in Sokoto State.
The development was announced on Friday by Kanu’s lawyer, Aloy Ejimakor, who disclosed the transfer in a post on X.
Ejimakor wrote: “Breaking: MAZI NNAMDI KANU has just been moved from DSS Abuja to the correctional facility (prison) in Sokoto; so far away from his lawyers, family, loved ones and wellwishers.”
This comes a day after the Federal High Court in Abuja convicted and sentenced Kanu to life imprisonment on terrorism charges — a judgment his legal team has strongly condemned as “a travesty of justice”.
Speaking to journalists after the ruling, Ejimakor said the verdict marked “a dark day in Nigeria’s judicial history.”
“Today will forever be in Nigeria history. Today is the only day I have witnessed a man being convicted for just what he said from his mouth, not what he did with his own hands,” he said.
Ejimakor argued that the evidence presented in court did not support the conviction.
“The verdict is not consistent with the evidence laid before the court. The sentence is overbroad, cruel and unusual,” he added.
He questioned how a person could be convicted for making a broadcast without any proven link to violence.
“How can you convict a man for making a mere broadcast from a location that was never named, and you never tied that broadcast to any single incidents of violence, or even someone slapping someone, not to talk of terrorism?”
According to him, Kanu’s agitation for self-determination cannot be criminalised.
“To pursue a separate nation of yours is not a crime. In Nigeria today, if somebody says, ‘don’t be silly’, he will get convicted.
Mazi Nnamdi Kanu made broadcasts, and so what? You convict him for terrorism for mere words in the Federal Republic of Nigeria. What kind of presidence is being laid?”
Ejimakor said the legal team will immediately begin the appeal process.
“From here we are heading to the Court of Appeal… If the Court of Appeal disagrees with us, we will head to the Supreme Court, but by God Almighty, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is not going to stand convicted. It is going to get overturned.”
Another defence lawyer, Barrister Maxwell Okpara, also criticised the judgment, saying it was driven by anger rather than legal reasoning. He urged for calm in the South-East and appealed to supporters not to resort to violence.
Okpara expressed confidence that higher courts would correct what he described as a grave miscarriage of justice.
