From Okey Sampson, Umuahia
Leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, has sued Kenyan government over his alleged extrajudicial rendition to Nigeria.
In the suit said to have been filled by Luchiri and Company Advocates, Kanu averred that his arrest in Kenya and subsequent extradition to Nigeria in June was unconstitutional.
Respondents in the suit are Kenya’s Interior CS, Director of Immigration, Director of Criminal Investigations, OCPD, Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, and Attorney General of the country.
A statement by IPOB leader’s younger brother, Emma Kanu, said the pro-Biafra group’s brother resident in Germany, Kingsley Kanunta, sued on his behalf.
The petition revealed that Kanu was in Kenya to seek medical attention for a heart challenge and for “IPOB-related work” when he was arrested.
The suit revealed that the IPOB leader arrived at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in May from Kigali, Rwanda, on an East African tourist visa and was not supposed to have been arrested the way he was.
“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. 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.”
Kanu’s counsel argued that his extradition from Nairobi to Abuja in June violated the Extradition (Contiguous and Foreign Countries) Act Chapter 76 of the laws of Kenya.
He 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 sought an order for “exemplary and punitive damages” against the respondents “on account of their gross violation of the subject’s fundamental freedoms and rights as enumerated in the petition.”
In the light of the above, the counsel further requested 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” was a violation of rights protected by the constitution.
Kanu, through his counsel also asked the court “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.”
No date has been fixed for the hearing of the suit.