Caleb Onwe 
The family of the detained Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader Nnamdi Kanu yesterday asked the National Judicial Council (NJC) to sanction the Chief Judge of Federal High Court Justice John Tsoho and Justice Binta Nyako for allegedly disobeying extant orders of the court. The family alleged that they had made a mockery with the laws of the land by not obeying court orders.
In a statement, Emmanuel Kanu said various pronouncements had been made in favour of his brother, who is facing terrorism charges at the Federal High Court Abuja. The family saluted the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun for re-assigning Kanu’s case to another judge.
The statement said: “Whilst we welcome the timely intervention of the CJN in ensuring that the decade-long sham trial of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is duly assigned to a competent judge untainted by bias or one that openly and unashamedly pander to tribal sentiments or exhibits the tendency to succumb to executive manipulation.
“We find it shocking that it required the involvement of the conscious public and that of the most senior judicial officer in Nigeria for Binta Nyako to obey her own order of recusal she made in her own court.
“In any sane country that takes adherence to the rule of law seriously, both John Tsoho the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court and Binta Nyako the presiding judge that made the recusal order ought to be sanctioned for bringing the judiciary into disrepute. “Is it not bizarre that a judge blatantly refused to obey an order of court?
“A chief judge that sought to set aside a valid court order by way of a phantom memo (written note) and a presiding judge that blatantly refused to honour the order she enrolled in her own court have no business being on the bench.
“It is even more shocking that some poorly informed, self-appointed defenders of judicial impunity in Nigeria, would dare argue on the pages of newspapers and media interviews that a judge can ignore a valid court order.
“At the heart of this long-running saga is the attempt by the state of Nigeria to criminalise selfdetermination which is a right guaranteed by law.”
