The legal team made this known in a statement issued on Monday by Ejimakor, after Kanu’s appearance at the Federal High Court, Abuja, where the case was adjourned indefinitely.
The legal team of the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, led by Barrister Aloy Ejimakor, has maintained that Justice Binta Murtala-Nyako can no longer conduct Kanu’s trial after being recused from the case.
The legal team made this known in a statement issued on Monday by Ejimakor, after Kanu’s appearance at the Federal High Court, Abuja, where the case was adjourned indefinitely.
The legal team stated that the process by which Justice Nyako exited from the case as the trial judge was a “judicial event”, noting that it emanated from the court order she made on September 24, 2024.
Kanu’s legal team said, “A plain reading of the Order shows that Her Lordship graciously consented to the recusal and that alone amounts to something.
“The said Order is extant and subsisting and was never appealed. So, to this day, it remains valid in all ramifications, such that it strains the legality of the hearing conducted before the same Judge today, 10th February.”
The IPOB leader’s legal team stated that Justice Nyako cannot review, reopen or revisit the matter of her recusal because she no longer possesses the jurisdiction and she has become functus officio.
The legal team stressed, “The principle of functus officio is not just a principle of procedure only. It is more of a question of jurisdiction and competence of a Court of law, such as the trial court, to give a judgment and thereafter re-visit it or conduct further post judgment proceedings.
“The question therefore is whether a Court can competently assume jurisdiction over a case it had concluded?”
The team noted that according to the law, “Once a judge gives a decision or makes an order on a matter, he no longer has the competence or jurisdiction to give another decision or order on the same matter.”
The legal team stated, “We have been informed by our Client, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and we have obtained a copy thereof … that he has initiated a Petition or a Complainant bordering on judicial misconduct against Honorable Justice Binta Murtala-Nyako.
“This alone, without more, is enough to oust the Justice from subjecting Mazi Kanu to any trial before her court.
“It is against the rule of natural justice, equity and good conscience (and even the Cons) for a Judge against whom a defendant has preferred a Petition to – before the disposition of such Petition – continue to preside over the trial of such a defendant.
This is very easy to understand – for lawyers and lay people alike.
“Compare and contrast with someone being a judge in his or her own case, or being a Judge over you when she is a defendant in case you initiated against her.
“The Petition or Complaint was filed on 14th January 2025 and it is pending.
“We make bold to say that the ball is firmly and exclusively in the court of the Federal Government, in the sense that since it has proved unable to bring Mazi Nnamdi Kanu to trial within a reasonable time.
“The next best thing (which is also lawful and constitutional) is to end this whole saga honorably by releasing Mazi Nnamdi Kanu either through restoration of his bail or otherwise – by a discontinuance of a case that was burdened by the indices of internecine politics from its inception ten years ago in 2015.”
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