[JUST IN]: Lawyer Dismisses Omotosho’s Strike-Out of Kanu Motion as ‘Procedural Theatre’

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A member of the Mazi Nnamdi Kanu Global Defense Consortium, Njoku Jude Njoku, has strongly criticized the decision of the Federal High Court presided over by Justice John Tsoho Omotosho to strike out a motion seeking the transfer of Nnamdi Kanu, describing the development as a “carefully staged facade” with no bearing on the substance of the case.

In a public briefing note released on Tuesday, Njoku said the court session was never intended to advance justice but was instead designed to create media headlines, project a false sense of finality, and divert attention from what he called “deep constitutional defects” already embedded in the conviction now under appeal.

According to the lawyer, the trial court had lost legal relevance after allegedly convicting Kanu without a valid offence-creating law in force. He argued that striking out a motion filed under conditions where the defendant is isolated from his legal team does not cure the alleged foundational defects of the case.

Njoku further faulted the reported reliance on a Legal Aid lawyer, stating that such representation could not meaningfully address the issues before the court. He maintained that Kanu has been compelled to draft his own legal processes due to what he described as deliberate state-engineered barriers preventing access to his chosen counsel.

“Striking out or not striking out changes nothing,” the statement said, insisting that the matter has moved beyond the trial court and is now firmly within the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeal.

The briefing note listed what it described as incurable defects already before the appellate court, including lack of jurisdiction, conviction under a repealed statute, abuse of savings clauses, denial of fair hearing, and the introduction of alleged “unchallenged facts” that were neither pleaded nor tested in open court.

Njoku argued that such issues cannot be resolved through procedural rulings at the trial court level, warning that each additional judicial step taken only compounds appellate liability rather than strengthens the judgment.

He concluded that Kanu’s continued detention in Sokoto should not be mistaken for validation of the trial court’s actions, but rather seen as exposing what he termed the emptiness of the process. According to him, history would record that while procedural noise dominated public discourse, the legal foundation of the conviction had already collapsed.

“The appeal is inevitable,” the statement said, adding that when the law is eventually interpreted at the appellate level, the latest court session would be remembered not as a milestone, but as “procedural theatre.”