A legal analyst and public affairs commentator, Barrister Christopher Chidera, has outlined what he described as “fatal jurisdictional errors” that render the conviction of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader, Nnamdi Kanu, legally unsustainable.
He argued in a legal critique on Tuesday that the Federal High Court committed two grave violations of Nigerian jurisprudence that no appellate court can overlook: relying on a repealed law and failing to take judicial notice of its repeal.
“No trial court, no matter how ambitious, can revive a dead law,” Chidera said. “The Terrorism (Prevention) Amendment Act 2013, under which Kanu was charged, was repealed by the National Assembly. A repealed law is dead. You cannot conduct a new trial on a dead statute.”
He added that the government’s attempt to rely on Section 98(3) of the Terrorism Prevention and Prohibition Act (TPPA) 2022 – a savings clause – cannot resurrect a law that the legislature has expressly abolished.
“Let no one deceive you,” he said. “Savings clauses preserve liabilities; they do not breathe life back into a repealed statute. Appellate courts have said this over and over again.”
Citing Supreme Court authorities such as Ojokolobo v Alamu and A.G Lagos v Dosunmu, Chidera stressed that once a statute is repealed, its prospective application dies with it.
He argued that no Nigerian court has ever permitted a fresh criminal trial under a repealed law, insisting that Justice Omotosho lacked jurisdiction the moment he proceeded on the basis of a dead statute.
Chidera maintained that even more damaging was the trial judge’s failure to take judicial notice of the repeal of the TPAA – a requirement he described as “automatic and non-negotiable”.
“Every court must take judicial notice of the law as it exists — whether it is enacted or repealed. That is not optional. You don’t ‘assume’ whether a law is alive or dead,” he said.
He pointed to Justice Omotosho’s own words – “assuming without conceding that TPAA has been repealed” – as evidence that the court proceeded on an incorrect assumption of law.
“That phrase alone destroys the entire judgment,” Chidera declared. “A court cannot assume the law. It must know the law. Failure to take judicial notice is a jurisdiction-killing error. Everything built on that foundation collapses automatically.”
Referencing cases such as NNPC v Fawehinmi and the Privy Council decision in Macfoy v UAC, he noted that proceedings based on a non-existent law are “incurably bad and void from the start.”
Chidera insisted that the issues at stake are not technicalities but foundational legal principles that even a politically influenced appellate panel cannot override.
“Jurisdiction is the soul of adjudication. Once it is absent, the entire process becomes a nullity. Not even the Supreme Court can amend or salvage a judgment delivered without jurisdiction,” he said.
According to him, the appellate court will be “forced by law, not politics” to confront the illegality.
“The government may rely on propaganda and optics, but the law is brutally simple: TPAA is dead. No savings clause resurrects it. And Justice Omotosho’s failure to take judicial notice of its death voids everything he did.”
Chidera challenged government lawyers and commentators to produce any Nigerian appellate or Supreme Court decision that permits a trial under a repealed statute.
“Ask anyone quoting Section 98(3) to show you one case – just one – where a court allowed a criminal trial under a repealed law,” he said.
“There is none. That tells you all you need to know about the limitations of the savings clause.”
He added that Kanu’s conviction “cannot stand in law and will not survive appellate scrutiny,” regardless of political pressure.
