Human rights activist and former presidential candidate Omoyele Sowore has condemned the Federal High Court’s life imprisonment verdict against Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), describing it as politically orchestrated rather than a product of justice.
Sowore, speaking after the judgment on Thursday, insisted that the outcome had been predetermined by the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“On November 5th, 2025, I publicly warned that the verdict in Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s case had already been decided by the Bola Ahmed Tinubu regime. Today, they executed that script word for word,” Sowore said.
He further asserted that the court proceedings were a formality meant to legitimise a decision that was long made behind closed doors.
“What we witnessed today was not justice; it was the execution of a political decision already taken long before the court sat, long before arguments were heard, and long before any evidence was considered,” Sowore said.
The activist also drew historical parallels to November 1995, when the military tribunal of General Sani Abacha sentenced Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists to death.
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“Three decades later, Nigeria stands at the same moral crossroads. Only the year has changed; this is 2025, not 1995, but the machinery of repression grinds on,” he said.
Sowore described Kanu’s trial as having shifted from a legal matter to a moral test for the nation, urging Nigerians to reflect on the kind of country they want.
The life sentence follows Kanu’s conviction on seven terrorism-related counts by Justice James Omotosho, who ruled that Kanu’s refusal to present a defence and his prior removal from the courtroom for unruly behaviour left the prosecution’s case unchallenged.
The court found that Kanu’s broadcast messages and “sit-at-home” orders in South-East Nigeria, enforced through threats and violence, amounted to acts of terrorism.