IPOB sues FG, army over proscription order

The proscribed Indigenous people of Biafra (IPOB) on Friday, sued the Federal authorities of Nigeria and the Nigerian military for limiting its sports and tagging it a terrorist agency. At a Federal excessive court docket in Abuja on Friday, IPOB prayed the court to set apart the order of injunction restricting its activities. The leader judge of the Federal high court, Justice Abdul Kafarati, on Wednesday in Abuja, granted Federal government an interim injunction restricting sports of the organization.



Kafarati granted the injunction in chambers after the Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami, had approached the courtroom with an exparte motion urging the courtroom to achieve this. President Muhammadu Buhari had earlier given written acclaim for the proscription of the institution, pending legal process. Governors of the Southeast states took the first step to ban the sports of the institution after the army had declared it a militant terrorist organization.

Ifeanyi Ejiofor, suggest to IPOB, led Maxwell Okpara, Chinwe Umeche, Habila Turshak, P. M. Umegborogu and Augustine Ezeokeke to record the method on behalf of the institution. The motion, with fit quantity FHC/ABJ/CS/871/17 changed into brought pursuant to phase 6(6) (1) (4) of the 1999 charter of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended in 2011. It turned into also brought beneath the inherent jurisdiction of the court docket. The workplace of the legal professional-fashionable of the Federation become indexed as respondent.

The applicant averred that the grounds upon which the utility became added hinged at the reality that the Sept.20 exparte order made in opposition to it with the aid of the courtroom turned into without jurisdiction. The lead recommend said the order granted towards the entity turned into unknown to law. Ejiofor posited that there was clean suppression and misrepresentation of records within the AGF’s affidavit evidence, pursuance to which the order became granted. “The order is unconstitutional, because it became made in clean violation of constitutionally assured proper of the Indigenous humans of Biafra to self-dedication.

“It also violated Article 20(1) of the Africa charter on Human & Peoples Rights, now domesticated into our regulation under (Ratification and Enforcement Act) (Cap 10) laws of the Federation of Nigeria 1990. “It ran towards the right to honest listening to, proper to freedom of expression and the press.

“It similarly violated the right to peaceful assembly and affiliation without a doubt provided for underneath sections 36, 39 and forty of the 1999 charter of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as (Amended) 2011,’’ Ejiofor said. in step with him, a declaratory order cannot be made pursuant to an exparte utility without hearing from the party against whom the order is made. He submitted that the Indigenous humans of Biafra who have been majorly of Igbo extraction had no records of violence in exercise their proper to self-dedication.

“The Indigenous humans of Biafra does now not carry hands and has no records of arm battle within the workout of its constitutionally assured right to self-determination.

“prior and at some point of the army invasion of the South japanese states, IPOB contributors had never at any time resorted to arm warfare or engaged in acts of violence able to threatening national safety. Justice Binta Nyako of Federal high court No four had in her ruling introduced on March 1 held that the Indigenous people of Biafra was no longer an illegal organization.”

Ejiofor further stated that Justice Nyako’s choice nevertheless subsisted because it became not appealed against to be set apart by any appellate court. the problem is yet to be assigned to any decide of the courtroom.