The American Veterans of Igbo Descent (AVID) has reminded Justice James Omotosho to be guided in the November 20 judgment on the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, that a dead charge cannot kill a living man.

In a statement issued by AVID President, Dr Sylvester Onyia, the group reminded Justice Omotosho, who has slated November 20 to deliver judgment on Kanu, that “Count 7 before him is the identical twin of the old Count 15 that the Supreme Court of Nigeria, on 15 December 2023, examined and declared:

“The offence as laid does not exist in the body of our laws … Count 15 is incompetent and is hereby struck out.” “The prosecution never amended it. They never re-framed it under the correct law (CEMA) as the Supreme Court expressly directed.

Justice Omotosho never ordered them to obey the apex court. “Instead, they simply renumbered the corpse and, on 29 March 2025, forced Mazi Nnamdi Kanu to take a fresh plea to a count that the highest court in the land had already buried.

“The other six counts are laid under the Terrorism (Prevention) Act 2011 as amended in 2013 — a statute that the National Assembly repealed and replaced on 12 May 2022, three years before the fresh arraignment.

“No court in Nigeria in 2025 has jurisdiction to try any citizen, under any circumstances, on the strength of a repealed law or a count the Supreme Court has declared non-existent.”