A lawyer, Onyedikachi Ifedi, has accused Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court, Abuja, of disregarding a Supreme Court directive and mandatory provisions of the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act 2022 (TPPA) when he convicted and sentenced Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
In a statement titled “The Tyranny of the Bench,” issued as Part 7 of a 150-part series on the judgment, Ifedi argued that “the conviction is fatally flawed and cannot be saved on appeal”.
The judgment, delivered on November 20, 2025, was in Federal Republic of Nigeria v. Nnamdi Kanu (Charge No. FHC/ABJ/CR/83/2015). Ifedi said Kanu applied formally for his trial to be moved from the earlier terrorism law (the 2011 Act, as amended in 2013) to the 2022 Act, citing Sections 97 and 98(2) of the new law.
He said the judge rejected the application and proceeded to convict Kanu under the repealed statute. He argued that both sections use the word “shall,” making the transition compulsory. He said the savings clause in Section 98(3) only kept pending cases alive so they could be transferred. It did not authorise a court to continue under the old law.
He cited Section 36(12) of the 1999 Constitution, which bars conviction for an offence not defined and penalised in a written law. He said a repealed statute is not a “subsisting” law, relying on a Supreme Court decision delivered by Justice Lawal Garba that a court lacks jurisdiction to try a person under a law that is no longer valid.
Ifedi further invoked the principle in Madukolu v. Nkemdilim, arguing that the judge lost jurisdiction once he declined to follow what he described as a mandatory statutory instruction.
He said an appellate court cannot treat the trial as having been transferred when the record shows otherwise. Ifedi also alleged that the judge refused the transfer because the 2022 Act contains stricter evidential rules and safeguards that the prosecution’s case could not meet, and that this amounted to a “predetermined” outcome.
He offered no evidence for this claim beyond his own reading of the record. He ended by challenging defenders of the judgment to name the law that empowered the judge to take that course.
Justice Omotosho has not publicly responded to the criticism. The prosecution’s position on the argument was not stated in the document.