The lawyer, Christopher Chidera, a member of the Mazi Nnamdi Kanu Global Defence Consortium, alleged that a review of the judgment shows that the trial judge committed a fundamental perversion of basic constitutional justice in convicting the agitator.
Chidera further alleged that the judge “abandoned the official charge sheet, fabricated a brand-new theory of criminal liability after the defence had closed, imported an uncharged statutory offence (Section 3 of the TPAA 2013) inside his chambers, and sent Mazi Nnamdi Kanu to prison for accusations he was never called upon to answer”.
“Anyone who continues to use the word “alleged” when the catastrophe is staring them right in the face on Page 1 and Page 96 is being blatantly mischievous. You do not need to guess; you only need to test the judgment against the charge that was actually filed. Put the original charge side-by-side with the final verdict, and see the judicial fraud with your own eyes.”
Chidera noted that while the official indictment accused Nnamdi Kanu of making broadcasts “in furtherance of an act of terrorism” under Section 1(2)(b) of the Terrorism Prevention (Amendment) Act 2013, TPAA 2013, in his final judgment, Justice Omotosho held that the broadcast itself constituted the primary and preparatory act of terrorism.
He said, “The plain reality is that the judge replaced the offence charged by the prosecution with a completely different offence at the point of judgment. This is like prosecuting an accused for helping someone paint a fence, only for the judge to deliver a verdict finding him guilty of building the entire house.
“The second distinct jurisdictional failure is the post-trial introduction of a brand-new statutory offence. Count six cited Section 1(2)(f) of the TPAA 2013. Section 3 (International Terrorism) appears nowhere on the indictment. In his final written reasoning, Justice Omotosho pulled Section 3 of the TPAA 2013 out of thin air, invoked its mandatory life-imprisonment penalty, and manufactured allegations regarding diplomatic targets to label Kanu an “international terrorist”.
“Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was never asked to enter a plea to Section 3, no witness testified to it, no exhibit proved it, and the defence was never given the opportunity to answer it. The judge manufactured a crime not pleaded and a statutory provision not charged to convict without any opportunity to defend.
“This is not a complaint about a wrong date, a mistaken name, or a minor typographical error in a charge sheet. It concerns the very offences for which Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was convicted. Under Section 36(6)(a) of the 1999 Constitution, every accused person has a non-negotiable right to be informed promptly, in detail, of the exact nature of the offence charged.
“That constitutional guarantee becomes completely meaningless if a court can introduce a different criminal accusation in its final judgment and convict on the strength of it. A court has zero authority to convict a citizen for an offence that was never charged. A judge is an impartial referee, not a prosecutor. He cannot rewrite the case after the defence has closed.
“Where is the harmless error in calling someone an international terrorist under an unpleaded section of the law without charge, notice, or evidence? This is beyond sloppy adjudication—it is a premeditated perversion of the course of justice.”
Chidera insisted that the Court of Appeal cannot uphold the conviction due to what he described as defects in the Abuja Federal High Court judgment.
He stated, “An appellate court seeking to uphold the conviction cannot avoid the problem by simply deleting Page 96 or striking out Section 3. It would have to explain how the judgment can stand when the judge’s own core reasoning moved entirely outside the charge sheet.
“The appellate court must confront the judgment as delivered. It cannot write a replacement judgment, invent a charge that was never filed, or deny Mazi Nnamdi Kanu his constitutional right to know the case he had to meet.
“Any attempt to uphold this conviction requires an appellate court to either pretend the judge did not say what he explicitly wrote on the record, or rewrite Section 36(6)(a) of the Constitution. Both routes leave an indelible, illegal perversion on open display.”
