—Pleads Not Guilty To Amended Charges
A Federal High Court Sitting Abuja has adjourned the case of the embattled leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu to November 10th.
Kanu had pleaded not guilty to the seven-count amended charge preferred against him by the Federal Government.
Kanu, who was re-arraigned before Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court, Abuja said he was innocent of all the allegations leveled against him by the Federal Government after the charge was read to him in the open court.
His re-arraignment came on a day the Department of State Services (DSS), blatantly refused to allow even a single journalist inside the courtroom.
The Federal Government, last week, in the amended charge marked FHC/ABJ/CR/383/2015, which was signed by a team of government lawyers led by the Director, Public Prosecution of the Federation, Mr. M. B. Abubakar, alleged that Kanu had in furtherance of an act of terrorism, issued a deadly threat that anyone that flouted his sit-at-home order should write his or her will.
FG alleged that as a result of Kanu’s directive, banks, schools, markets, shopping malls, fuel stations were not opened for businesses, with vehicular movements grounded in the South East region of the country.
It said the action amounted to an offence contrary to and punishable under 1(2) (b) of the Terrorism Prevention Amendment Act, 2013.
FG alleged that Kanu had “on or about the 28th April, 2015 in London, United Kingdom did in a broadcast on Radio Biafra monitored in Enugu, Enugu state and other parts of Nigeria within the jurisdiction of this honourable court, referred to Major General Muhammadu Buhari, GCON, President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as a paedophile, a terrorist, an idiot and an embodiment of evil, knowing same to be false and you thereby committed an offence contrary to section 375 of the Criminal Code Act, Cap C. 38 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004”
He was alleged to have committed treasonable felony, an offence punishable under Section 41(C) of the Criminal Code Act, CAP C38 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria.
