Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), has been denied bail by Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court in Abuja.
In her ruling on the bail application, Justice Binta Nyako stated that the issue of Kanu’s absence in the past, since 2017, should be resolved before his bail application is considered.
Kanu, she added, violated his previous bail conditions, and his current bail application is immature until that is heard.
The Federal Government filed a six-count amended charge against Kanu on Wednesday morning, ahead of the bail application ruling.
However, Justice Nyako chastised the prosecution for filing the amended charge just hours before the ruling. She stated that she was unaware of the amended charge until she arrived at court in the morning.
According to her, the prosecution cannot present the new amended charge to the court on the day of the hearing.
The court noted in dismissing Kanu’s bail application that his trial had been delayed since 2015 due to over 19 interlocutory applications filed in the matter.
As a result, it pleaded with the parties to allow the case to go to trial so that the charge could be determined.
Kanu had asked the court to release him on bail pending the determination of the charge against him in an application filed under sections 6(6) and 36(5) and (6) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, as well as sections 161, 162, 163 and 165 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, ACJA, 2015.
Nigeria’s Department of State Services had arraigned Kanu in an Abuja Magistrate Court for the first time on charges of “criminal conspiracy, intimidation, and membership in an illegal organisation” (DSS).
The charges violated Nigeria’s penal code’s “Sections 97, 97B, and 397.” Chief Magistrate S. Usman chastised the Department of State Services (DSS) for failing to produce Kanu in court on the two occasions when the matter was called before the court.
Kanu’s supporters stormed Abuja in luxury buses in a peaceful protest against their leader, who was arraigned by the Federal Government on November 23, 2015, before the Wuse Zone 2 Magistrate Court in Abuja.