JUST IN: Court Refused Nnamdi Kanu’s Bail Application, Says His ‘Absence Since 2017 Must First Be Determined’

The Federal High Court in Abuja, Wednesday, dismissed the bail application filed by Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).

Ruling on the bail application, the judge, Binta Nyako, held that the issue of Mr Kanu’s absence from court since 2017 must first be determined before his bail request can be heard.

“The defendant’s bail application at this point is premature, having breached all the bail conditions earlier granted him,” the judge said.

“Parties should go into trial,” Mrs Nyako told both the prosecuting and defence lawyers.

The court had ordered Mr Kanu’s arrest in March 2019 after adjudging him to have jumped bail.

The arrest order came months after the IPOB leader fled the country in the wake of the invasion of his home by soldiers in Afara-Ukwu, near Umuahia, Abia State, in September 2017.

Mr Kanu’s disappearance stalled his trial which he was jointly undergoing along with his co-defendants. With the development, the judge, on March 28, 2018, severed his trial from that of other co-defendants to stop further delay in the others’ case.

Mr Kanu, a citizen of both Nigerian and Britain, was believed to have moved to Israel and later to the United Kingdom after leaving Nigeria.

But the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, announced in June 2021, that Mr Kanu had been “intercepted” and returned to Nigeria.

While Mr Malami was silent on where Mr Kanu was apprehended and the circumstances of his repatriation to Nigeria, the IPOB leader’s family members and lawyers said he was abducted and “extraordinary renditioned” from Kenya.