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Supreme Court Declines To Free Nnamdi Kanu, Orders Continuation Of The IPOB Leader’s Trial

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The Supreme Court on Friday ordered the continuation of the trial of Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) on terrorism charges.

The case which started in 2015 had been put on hold at the Federal High Court in Abuja after the Court of Appeal dismissed the charges in a judgement delivered in October 2022.

The Court of Appeal in Abuja had anchored its decision dismissing the charges on the illegality of the “extraordinary rendition” of Mr Kanu from Kenya to Nigeria in June 2021 to continue his trial.

A five-member panel of the Supreme Court led by Kudirat Kekere-Ekun declared on Friday that Mr Kanu’s forcible repatriation from Kenya to Nigeria is illegal.

However, the court, in the lead judgement prepared by Tijjani Abubakar, ruled that there is no Nigerian law that prohibits the use of “illegally obtained evidence for the trial of a defendant.”

The lead judgement of the Supreme Court was prepared by Mr Abubakar but was read on his behalf by Emmanuel Agim.

“The Court of Appeal was wrong to say that the Federal High Court can no longer try Mr Kanu,” the court held.

“The appeal is allowed and the cross-appeal is dismissed.”

In the unanimous decision, the Supreme Court said Mr Kanu’s forcible repatriation from Kenya in June 2021 by the Nigerian government did not rob the trial court of jurisdiction to entertain the IPOB leader’s trial.

“Our law is that evidence illegality obtained is valid before the court. A violation of Mr Kanu’s right should have been by way of civil proceedings. That is not our law for now,” Mr Abubakar declared.

He also ruled that there is no legislation that provides in Nigeria that trial should stop where the prosecution does something illegal against the defendant while standing trial. “There is a civil remedy,” Mr Abubakar said.

The judgement also implies an effective reversal of the previous decision of the Court of Appeal ordering the release of Mr Kanu from detention.

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The British Left Two Devils Behind When They Left Nigeria -Bode George

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“I have said it before, there are two devils left behind when the British left Nigeria. The first was tribalism. They planted it as a devil and the second is Religious bigotry. What has these issues got to do with managing people.

“Nobody selected himself that I want to be Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa man. No. You just popped out and whether you are a Muslim or Christian is irrelevant.

“In all religions that I know, you are told to love your Neighbor as yourself. What you will not accept, don’t do it to another neighbor because if you pack up and die, that’s the end. Let us have an impact of governance.” -Chief Bode George On AriseTV News

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After years of evading arrest, NDLEA nabs most wanted Lagos drug baron, Temo

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After many years of wearing the toga of invincibility, the overall head of the Mushin, Lagos drug cartel, 57-year-old Alhaji Sulaiman Jimoh (alias Olowoidiogede, populary known as Temo), has been arrested by operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, at his enclave after an initial resistance from him and his horde of hoodlums.

In the last two years, the NDLEA had intercepted large consignments of illicit drugs worth billions of naira owned by Temo but he has remained largely evasive while a few encounters with him and his armed gangs in his Mushin enclave had resulted in gunfight.

Some of the recent seizures of his shipments include: a 14, 524.8 kilograms of Ghana Loud, a strong strain of cannabis sativa, smuggled into Lagos from Ghana in two trucks and a J5 bus intercepted at Ojuelegba area of Lagos in the early hours of Sunday 28th January 2024; two truck-loads of the same substance weighing 8,852kg intercepted at Eleko beach, Lekki Lagos on 4th May 2023 and 252kg of Loud seized from his enclave in Mushin on Wednesday 26th July 2023. Indeed, in the last two encounters, his men engaged NDLEA operatives in gunfight.

The drug kingpin was very notorious for always being on the move to evade arrest but with persistence and determination of the Agency aided by modern tools and intelligence, the concerted effort to get him paid off at 10am on Monday 22nd July 2024 when NDLEA’s surveillance teams on his trail tracked and pinned him down at Igbarere street, Mushin. A reinforcement of about 50 operatives was immediately mobilized to the area while he was attempting to escape in a Mercedes Benz SUV GLE 350 marked 01G-300G. His attempt to escape by mobilizing hoodlums to engage and distract the operatives however failed after which he was overpowered and whisked away from the chaotic scene while his men surrendered to the superior firepower of the anti-narcotic agents who also succeeded in recovering the Mercedes Benz SUV the suspect was found in.

In his reaction to the arrest of Temo, Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (Rtd) commen

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Peter Obi Writes Onanuga, Demands Apology, N5bn within 72 Hours

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The Presidential Candidate of our Labour Party in the 2023 general elections, Peter Obi has demanded from the Special Adviser on Communication and Strategy to the President, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, the retraction of his wild allegation, linking him as behind the planned mass protest being planned for August.

Obi, writing through his counsel, Chief Alex Ejesieme, SAN of the MADIBA Chambers, said that the allegation which was widely published in social and mainstream media and read by many within and outside the country maligned his hard-earned reputation as a man who indulges in violence when all his antecedents are vivid that he abhors violence even in the face of extreme provocation.

“It’s our client’s conviction that the publication was a calculated plot to demean, ridicule, humiliate and embarrass him by the estimation of every right thinking member of the society”

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