ABUJA, Nigeria — Nnamdi Kanu, the convicted leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), has filed a 22-ground notice of appeal seeking to overturn the Nov. 20, 2025 judgment of the Federal High Court in Abuja that sentenced him to life imprisonment on seven terrorism-related counts.
In the appeal, which Kanu personally signed, he argued that trial judge Justice James Omotosho “erred in law” and that the proceedings resulted in a “grave miscarriage of justice.”
A key plank of Kanu’s challenge is his claim that the trial court failed to determine the legal consequences of the September 2017 disruption of his earlier trial following the military operation widely known as Operation Python Dance II, during which his Afara-Ukwu residence was raided. Kanu contends that the court should have first resolved how that disruption affected the competence of the proceedings before taking evidence and delivering judgment.
He also complained that the court proceeded to trial and judgment without hearing and determining his pending preliminary objection challenging jurisdiction and the competence of the proceedings—an objection he said was supported by affidavit evidence and raised threshold issues that ought to have been decided upfront.
Another ground of appeal targets the sentencing process. Kanu argued that the trial judge imposed sentence without taking his allocutus—the opportunity for a convicted defendant to address the court in mitigation—and that the punishment was excessive and/or unlawful because the court allegedly failed to consider relevant mitigating factors.
Kanu is asking the Court of Appeal to set aside the conviction and sentences, and to enter an order discharging and acquitting him on all counts in charge FHC/ABJ/CR/383/2015. He also indicated he wants to be present during the appeal hearing and said he may conduct the appeal in person.
Kanu was convicted in November 2025 after prosecutors argued that his broadcasts and directives linked to IPOB incited violence in Nigeria’s south-east; the court imposed life imprisonment rather than the death penalty sought by prosecutors, according to earlier reporting.
