Nigeria's Appeal Court has dropped all charges against separatist leader Nnamdi Kanu after ruling that he had been illegally arrested abroad.
The court also ruled that his extradition had been illegal.
The Appeal Court sitting in Abuja while discharged the embattled leader Kanu who was being prosecuted by the federal government at the Federal High Court in Abuja for 15 count charges bordering, including treasonable felony and terrorism, offences he allegedly committed in the course of his separatist campaigns.
The three-man panel of the Court of Appeal said the Federal High Court lacks the jurisdiction to try him in view of his abduction and extraordinary rendition to Nigeria in flagrant violation of the OAU convention and protocol on extradition.
The court held that the 15-count charge preferred against Kanu did not disclose the place, date, time and nature of the alleged offences before being unlawfully extradited to Nigeria in clear violation of international treaties.
The Appeal Court however ruled that the Federal High Court did not have the jurisdiction to try Kanu.over the 15 charges of which eight had previously been dropped.
The court further held that the federal government failed to disclose where Nnamdi Kanu was arrested despite the grave allegations against him.
Mike Ozekhome, the chief counsel to Kanu recently wrote to President Muhammadu Buhari demanding the immediate release of his client.
In the letter dated Monday, October 3, Ozekhome premised his petition on the need to seek a political solution to the travails of the embattled IPOB leader.
The letter, which has in copy Abubakar Malami, the minister of justice, Ozekhome asked the president to direct the Attorney General of the Federation to facilitate the release.
On their reactions, human rights activists, Deji Adeyanju and Omoyele Sowore have asked the federal government to immediately release Kanu following the Appeal Court ruling.
While Sowore, the African Action Congress presidential candidate , tweeted #FreeNnamdi Kanu
Kanu leads the banned indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob) group.
Ipob is campaigning for the creation of an independent state in south-eastern Nigeria.
Kanu - who holds a UK passport - fled Nigeria in 2017 before he was seized and brought back in 2021.
His 2021 arrest abroad was illegal because extradition protocol was not followed, the court said.
Kenya has not commented on whether it played a role in Kanu's deportation to Nigeria.
He was originally arrested in 2015 but he fled Nigeria in 2017 while out on bail. He had previously denied any wrongdoing.
Ipob wants a group of states in the south-east of the country, largely inhabited by members of the Igbo ethnic group, to break away from Nigeria and form an independent nation called Biafra.
In 1967 Igbo leaders declared independence for the state of Biafra, but after a civil war, which led to the deaths of up to a million people, the secessionist rebellion was defeated.
But the idea of Biafra has never gone away and despite the arrests of his members, Kanu's movement has seen a recent swell in its numbers.
The ruling by a panel of three judges is seen as a major blow to the government which had detained Kanu on various treason and terrorism-related charges.
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