How Justice Omotosho and Chief Awomolo Engineered a Trial Without Law (Full Details)

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Abuja, Nigeria — The Nigerian Federal High Court has come under intense scrutiny following the proceedings of 4 November 2025, in which Mazi Nnamdi Kanu repeatedly asked the court to identify the law under which he was being tried — a question that, according to legal experts, goes to the very foundation of constitutional criminal justice.

According to a detailed public brief by Kanu’s legal team, Justice Omotosho presided over a trial without ever naming a statute, section, or written law that justified the charges or Kanu’s detention. At one point, the judge acknowledged the Constitution’s Section 36(12), which forbids trial or conviction without a defined offence, but effectively neutralized it by stating it applied only at the conviction stage.

“The most basic question in criminal justice — ‘what law am I being tried under?’ — was never answered,” the brief states. Instead, the court repeatedly deferred the question to a so-called “final address” — only to abolish that forum entirely before judgment was delivered.

The brief also accuses Chief Awomolo, the lead prosecutor, of remaining silent on the law, enabling what the legal team calls a coordinated “institutional tandem” to circumvent legal procedure. The prosecution never clarified the charges or justified the law under which Kanu was held, leaving the accused effectively coerced to present a defence against an unnamed offence.

Further allegations include misrepresentation of evidence related to extraordinary rendition, judicial coercion, and prioritizing docket pressure over constitutional compliance. The brief concludes that the events of 4 November were not mere error or confusion but “a calculated effort to force a conviction in the absence of law.”

The Kanu legal team has made the full record publicly available, citing multiple passages in which Kanu’s demands for legal clarity were ignored or postponed, and where judicial and prosecutorial actions appeared coordinated to suppress objections.

Legal analysts say the case raises serious questions about due process, judicial integrity, and the limits of prosecutorial power in the Nigerian legal system.