Enugu State High Court has declared the proscription of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, by the South-East Governors’ Forum as illegal, unconstitutional, and null and void.
Gatekeepers News reports that the South-East Governors Forum, led by former Gov David Umahi of Ebonyi State, proscribed IPOB activities in 2017.
The development led to the Federal Government listing IPOB as a terror organisation three days later.
However, IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, through his counsel, Aloy Ejimakor, approached the court to seek the reversal of the proscription.
The IPOB leader sought the court’s declaration that IPOB was legal as it was an organisation “composed of citizens of Nigeria of the Igbo and other eastern Nigerian ethnic groups, professing the political opinion of self-determination.”
Kanu prayed the court to declare his “arrest and consequent detention and prosecution as illegal, unlawful, unconstitutional and amounts to infringement of the applicant’s fundamental rights.”
The IPOB leader urged the court to make a declaration that “self-determination is not a crime and thus cannot be used as a basis to arrest, detain and prosecute the applicant.”
He further prayed the court to compel the defendants to pay him N8bn in damages “for the physical, mental, emotional and psychological trauma he was subjected to.”
In his judgement on Thursday, Justice Onovo agreed with Kanu and declared IPOB proscription “unconstitutional and illegal.”
He also ordered the defendants to pay him N8bn damages and to tender a public apology to him through newspaper publications.
Shortly after the judgement, Kanu’s lawyer, Ejimakor, while addressing journalists said, “We are grateful that justice has prevailed over this matter since 2017. The court has reaffirmed the hopes of the common man in the judiciary. You have saved thousands of lives.”
