HE WHO COMES TO EQUITY MUST COME WITH CLEAN HANDS:
Margaret Akpa
Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are”, said Benjamin Franklin. Those words commend themselves to us today as we examine the landmark ruling of the Court of Appeal, Abuja, on the prosecution of Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
The judgement came like a bolt out of the blue. No one — at least, not among the commentariat — had an inkling of where the pendulum of justice would swing. It is not everyday that judges rise up to their historic responsibility of dispensing justice without fear or favour. When the judgement is against the government of which the judiciary is an arm, it is even more remarkable.
The Law Codes have set the rules of the game to ensure a level playing field and protect the weak against the strong. “No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man’s permission when we ask him to obey it.” For good measure it also adds that, “A law is valuable, not because it is a law, but because there is right in it.”
So, rightness is at the heart of law. That is why the law insists that, “He who comes into equity must come with clean hands”.
Kanu’s case has tenaciously hugged the headlines all year round. Every time he appears in court, a circus show is staged by his ardent followers and the reverberations are felt in his South-east homeland where Mondays had been declared work free days in sympathy with the IPOB leader. He had breached the conditions of the bail earlier granted him by Justice Binta Nyako before whom he was originally arraigned for treasonable felony, on the grounds that there was a real threat to his life. Irritated by his continued vituperations against the government of Nigeria, other ethnic nationalities and political leaders in government, the authorities resorted to self-help, allegedly by luring him to Kenya and then abducting him in a manner fit for Gestapo movies.
Justice Nyako had held that the IPOB leader’s arrest in Kenya and repatriation to Nigeria were in compliance with her order in 2019 for his arrest to face trial. She struck out eight of the 15 amended charges filed against the defendant and dismissed the defence team’s objection over the court’s jurisdiction to entertain the suit.
But the appellate court declared Kanu’s abduction from Kenya to Nigeria as illegal and unlawful and quashed the entire terrorism charges brought against him by the Federal Government. It further stated that the Federal Government breached all local and international laws in the forceful rendition of Kanu to Nigeria, thereby making the terrorism charges against him incompetent and unlawful.
Justice Oludotun Adefope-Okojie who read the Appeal Court’s verdict held that the failure of Nigeria to follow due process by way of extradition was fatal to the charges against Kanu. The court also held that the failure of the Federal Government to disclose where and when the alleged offences were committed was also fatal to the terrorism charges and made them liable to dismissal. It added that the Federal Government, having flagrantly breached the fundamental rights of Kanu, had lost the right to put him on trial.
The case against Kanu was instituted by the Federal Government. The charges were not levelled by one tribe against another. It is sterile to continue colouring every pronouncement on it in veiled tribal innuendoes. After his tribulations and the way Nigerians from different parts of the country have called for his release, Kanu himself must have developed a renewed respect for the country of his birth by now. Things may not be the way they are supposed to be, but we should all keep working at it to make it the idyllic home we desire.
“Reconciliation”, says Violeta Chamorro, “is more beautiful than victory.”
Margaret Akpa is a human rights
Image Credit: Google
