07/06/2026
IPOB PRESS STATEMENT
SUBJECT: Onyendu Mazi Nnamdi Kanu Accepts In Toto the Federal Government's Cross-Appeal Damning Admission: Trial Court Acted Without Jurisdiction — A Total Collapse That the Court of Appeal Cannot Cure
The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) wishes to draw the attention of the world, the international community, and all men of conscience to yet another spectacular self-inflicted wound by the APC-led Federal Government of Nigeria in its desperate attempt to keep Onyendu Mazi Nnamdi Kanu in perpetual bo***ge.
In its Notice of Cross-Appeal filed against the judgment of the Federal High Court, Abuja (Coram: Hon. Justice J.K. Omotosho), delivered on the 20th day of November, 2025, the Federal Government unequivocally declared in black and white that the trial Court acted without jurisdiction when it imposed life imprisonment on Counts 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6.
Onyendu Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the indefatigable Lion of Biafra and Leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, accepts this premise in toto. We adopt the Federal Government’s own words as our own. If the trial Court acted without jurisdiction at the sentencing phase, then the entire sentencing exercise is a nullity ab initio. Jurisdiction is not divisible. It is a sacred continuum. You cannot validly convict a man and then lack jurisdiction to sentence him on the same counts. That is judicial absurdity.
As the Supreme Court made clear in the immortal Madukolu v. Nkemdilim (1962), once there is a feature in the case that prevents the court from exercising jurisdiction, the entire proceedings are null and void no matter how well conducted. The Federal Government has now supplied that fatal feature through its own pleading. With the greatest respect, the Court of Appeal lacks the power to repair, cure, or resuscitate what the Respondent itself has declared jurisdictionally dead.
The FG cannot approbate and reprobate. They cannot admit the sentencing phase was conducted without jurisdiction and in the same
