IPOB rejects hooded witnesses for Kanu’s trial

Nnamdi Kanu, IPOB leader

The leadership of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has completely rejected the planned secret trial of their Leader, Nnamdi Kanu, by the Nigerian Judiciary, under the control of Muhammadu Buhari.  In this statement signed by its twin spokespersons, Barister Emma Nmezu and Dr. Clifford Iroanya, IPOB says it will direct its lawyers to stay away from the court if the Judiciary goes ahead with the charade.

Justice John Terhemba Tsoho, was born 24th of June 1959. Today, many people have come to know him as a disgrace to the Nigerian Judiciary, for behaving unashamedly like a candle in the wind.

It is mind boggling to imagine the extent this semi-literate, corrupt judge can go in order to please Retired Major General Muhammadu Buhari so that he would be appointed the next Chief Judge of the Federal High Court come 2017.

How can a Judge of the High Court not be able to tell the difference between "shall" and "may" and uses BOTH words interchangeably? In the last court hearing, he asserted that the word "shall" means discretionary! In addition to his half-baked understanding of English words, Justice Tsoho is a coward, a conman, and very inconsistent in decision-making. For instance, he has refused to sign and publish his rulings within the statutory seven days, thereby deliberately perverting the course of justice by denying Mazi Nnamdi Kanu the right to appeal against his obnoxious and illegal Judgments.

The law stipulates that rulings in the criminal trial should be signed and delivered to interested parties within seven days and yet Justice Tsoho flouted this part of the law. If he can not comply with the law to help in ensuring the efficient administration of the courts, how can he be expected to understand other laws he is supposed to be interpreting?

The inconsistency in Justice Tsoho is glaring, he ruled in favor of the public attending court hearing; but in the next court hearing, he barred the public and members of the press from attending. Justice Tsoho should be asked why he says something in his rulings and does another. How can this Judge allow secret trial where people will hide behind the blackboard to tell lies without the accused or the public able to read their body language to determine if they are lying or not. It will be recalled that this same Justice Tsoho said during his summary in the application for Secret Trial by the Federal Government of Nigeria that the body language of the witnesses is key in ascertaining their truthfulness. However, at the next sitting he succumbed to pressures from Buhari by reversing himself, without proper judicial process, to allow secret trial that he previously rejected. This type of judicial madness can only happen in Buhari’s Nigeria where there is disregard for the law, or the legal process

Justice Tsoho's acceptance of the demands of DSS that the phantom witnesses will not testify in an open trial is in conflict with Section 36 (3) of the Nigerian Constitution. More on the issues of masked witnesses, we would like to place it on record that IPOB will never allow or condone the secret trial of our leader, Nnamdi Kanu. When Buhari in his stage-managed media chat of December 30th, 2015 accused Nnamdi Kanu of committing serious crimes, he did so in public and not behind a screen. Therefore all those coming to court to witnesses for the Federal Government of Nigeria to support Buhari's allegations against Nnamdi Kanu must also do so in public. It is on record that Justice John Tsoho in his court asked the Federal Government of Nigeria prosecutor to remove Mr. Idakwo, the DSS interrogator, from appearing as the prosecuting counsel in the case. The DSS, working at the directive of Buhari, has been the instrument of persecution of the IPOB leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. So, is Tsoho actually the judge or the DSS sidekick in this case?

Justice Tsoho even said that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu's eye glasses and wedding band could be tendered as evidence against him in the trial of treasonable felony! Although this semi-literate Judge should know that single individual cannot be charged for treasonable felony because implicit in that charge is conspiracy, yet he is allowing only Nnamdi Kanu to be charged for treasonable felony. Even the two other Biafrans (David Nwawuisi and Benjamin Madubugwu) were not charged with treasonable felony.

Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has only three charges against him whereas Justice Tsoho is giving the impression that there were six charges against him. He was using the misleading reports, which were planted in the media by the DSS to poison the minds of the public. The only thing Justice Tsoho could do was to keep mum and pretend like he never heard of, nor read about them.

David Nwawuisi was abducted by the DSS in July 2015 and clamped into detention without trial until towards the end of the year, contrary to all extant laws of Nigeria. Also, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was arraigned at the Magistrate Court and charged with managing unlawful society but this was one of the charges that were struck off, yet the DSS included the same charge in the current trial at the High Court. David Nwauisi was recently charged with managing unlawful society after illegally detaining him for almost six months without access to a lawyer. The question is, why is Justice Tsoho not looking into these cases of miscarriage of justice, abuse of power, and trampling on the fundamental human rights of Individuals?

So, how can such an obviously evil man in the person of Justice John Tsoho, with a history of corruption and compromised rulings, which he cannot even proudly sign and publish, be handed such a high profile case? To some extent, the blame cannot be heaped on the totally compromised, corrupt, semi-literate, and incompetent Justice John Tsoho. Part of the blame should go to the system that allowed such a lily-livered coward to emerge as a Judge. The system allowed an innate coward that cannot stand up for the truth and justice, which he swore to uphold but instead allowed his conscience to be bought for a pot of porridge!

But is this not the same system that produced the fearless Justice Kolawole who threw out the previous bogus charge of terrorism because he saw through the lies of Buhari and his DSS. Also it is worthy to note that complimenting the system that threw up jokers like Justice John Tsoho is the incompetence of the so-called DSS. The tactically challenged DSS lied to Buhari by assuring him that Nnamdi Kanu committed serious treasonable felony acts, but in keeping with his legendary incompetence Buhari never asked for the evidence to ascertain if what they were telling him was the truth or not. Instead of the DSS to tell Buhari that they found nothing that can stand up in the court against the IPOB leader, they decided to coarse Justice John Tsoho into accepting and ruling in favor of a secret trial.

The case of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is not the first treasonable felony case to be heard in Nigerian court. Chief Obafemi Awolowo was charged with treason and tried openly and not in secret. The witnesses testified against Awolowo in the open and not behind a screen with their faces hidden. So, why must the trial of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu be any different? What Buhari, the Attorney General of Nigeria, DSS, and Justice Tsoho are attempting is to write a new set of trial procedure because the case involves the agitation for the free nation of Biafra. But they have failed. We will instruct our lawyers to walk away from the shamelessly corrupt law courts of Nigeria rather than allow any form of secret trial to continue.