Justice Binta Nyako has been the subject of hot debate since her Monday’s decision to indefinitely adjourn the trial of Nnamdi Kanu.
Vanguard reported that not all senior lawyers are willing to share their thoughts on the matter. But Chief Nkereuwem Udofia Akpan, a seasoned human rights lawyer, made some startling revelation on the reasons the embattled IPOB leader is still in detention.
According to him, Kanu has put one wrong steps after another since the case begun, and the legal team defending him seemed unable to control him.
- Nnamdi Kanu hits Binta Nyako, and she suspends the trial indefinitely (video)
- Nyako can continue Nnamdi Kanu’s trial on one condition – Mohammed, SAN
Chief Nkereuwem said, for example, that Kanu’s poor knowledge of the law would not allow him understand that Justice Nyako still has the right to keep trying him.
The Mail reported that Nnamdi Kanu appeared before the trial judge on Monday to resume his case, but he would not let Nyako preside over it. He cited previous decision that Nyako recuse herself from his case. Reacting, the trial judge adjourned it indefinitely.
That’s a mistake from Kanu, Chief Nkereuwem posited. Another grave mistake the IPOB leader keep making, the lawyer added, was not respecting his legal team.
It should be recalled that, last year, Nnamdi Kanu, shout down his lead counsel Alloy Ejimakor in open court and told him to “sit down.”
Also while addressing the press on Monday after the proceeding, Kanu was seen on cameras ignoring nudges from members of his legal team. He commanded to one of them that he should not “talk while I’m talking.”
This, Nkereuwem said, is big misstep.
“Let me add this perhaps and with the greatest respect to my learned friends in the Defence Team of Nnamdi Kanu, some of whom I have known personally, that they do not seem to be in control of the proceedings.
“It seems to me that they dropped the ball by pandering to Kanu and allowing some of these controversies under their watch.
The entire drama of the Kanu trial and the approach adopted by his legal team is truly confusing to me as a practitioner and if the counsel were fully in charge of the matter, that case would have been concluded years ago.
“However, it would be impossible for some of us to be counsel in a matter where the client is commanding us to ‘sit down’ in open court,” Nkereuwem submitted.
Nyako’s adjournment had completely put Kanu’s followers in the dark. Even after Ejimakor defended his team’s decision that Nyako had lost her standing to continue Kanu’s trial, nobody still knows of Kanu’s fate.
Leave a Reply