By Barrister Enemuo CC.
I found interest in the interview with Governor Chukwuma Soludo on Channel News, where the Nnamdi Kanu issue was a decoy.
For starters, the present plight of Nnamdi Kanu exposes the flagrant abuse of the bilateral extradition law between two sovereign Commonwealth states (Nigeria and the United Kingdom), under British umpire.
There is no doubt that Nigeria has a legal system; however, Western concerns often give the struggling system a nod for abuse, even as our courts are under caution while referencing Western jurisprudence.
However, there is a visible violation of both Kenyan law and the extradition treaty by the Kenyan counterpart. Yet, it is not enough that the Kanyan court made a sound pronouncement against the extrajudicial rendition (abduction, kidnap) of Kanu.
Nevertheless, the commendable pronouncement of the Kenyan judiciary against the interference and abuse was focused on its internal law; it did not address the substantive violation of the bilateral treaty in question. Otherwise, there should have been an upward appeal at the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights for further rulings and enforcement.
In the case of Nigeria, it is a critical situation where a fictitious person is being tried through an unknown process, for which judicial recoil appears to be the only solution.
Fortunately, another opportunity has been presented itself by the “no-case submission”, an instrument filed by Kanu, which aligns with the Nigerian legal system. If this legal approach is properly adjudicated upon, it would give legitimacy to the Kenyan judicial pronouncement and ultimately strengthen the bilateral treaties between Nigeria and its counterpart.
Now, Governor Chukwuma Soludo’s approach on the same subject matter at Channels TV was a spontaneous escape from double jeopardy, where the state could have been entangled in a new marginalisation scheme within the political, security and economic spheres of the Nigerian system, at the same time, obscuring the bigger picture of a positive continuity.
The stance of Governor Soludo on the Igbo man’s agitation viz a viz Kanu, can be found on YouTube and in several print media. Until we encounter a superseding “neck-sticking” posture of the governor’s exceptional views, which surpasses ingenuity, but instead has brought about a visible status of “working the talk” in Anambra State.
Therefore, it is to credit mischief if the agitations of yesterday were intentionally subjected to petty partisanship by critics of the famous TV episode.
For the sake of ethics and truth, it is not to deny that there is monumental progress in Anambra State. If this is the case, then let yesterday’s agitation of the Igbo man become the foundation of today’s “SOLUTIONS “.
Therefore, Governor Chukwuma Soludo is actively stepping into his second act: a continuation of the problem-solving path for the long-standing agitation of the people of the South-East.
In conclusion, if history ever gets told straight, it won’t be of Kanu as the villain or governor Soludo as a “jettisoner”; it will be of two men at different stations on the same railway, one who is persistent in questioning discrepancies during the journey, and the other who is fixing the rail track, for destination’s sake.
By Barrister Enemuo CC.
