PART 8 OF 150: OMOTOSHO’S EIGHTH JURISDICTIONAL FAILURE — THE BLACK-MARKET PROSCRIPTION: HOW A TRIAL JUDGE SUBSTITUTED "JUDICIAL NOTICE" FOR PROOF BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT TO SANCTION A CONSTITUTIONAL NULLITY
By Onyedikachi Ifedi, Esq.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: THE BLOODY TRIGGER OF A FRAUDULENT PROSCRIPTION
Strip away the formalistic jargon of the courtrooms and look at the bloody reality on the streets of the South East: Without the black-market proscription of IPOB, there would be no terrorism trial of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu today.
That secret, backroom ex parte order was not just a defective legal document—it was the lethal trigger. It became the state-sanctioned license used by military and security forces to unleash unchecked violence, extrajudicial slaughter, and arbitrary mass arrests upon thousands of Biafran youths, beginning with the bloody rampage of Operation Python Dance II in September 2017.
And what was the evidentiary foundation for transforming millions of people into designated "terrorists" overnight? NOT A SINGLE DOCUMENTED ACT OF TERRORISM. NOT ONE PROVEN CASUALTY.
Read Justice Kafarati's ex parte order—it is there in the public domain for the whole world to see. Justice Kafarati did not point to or reference a single, specific act of terrorism committed by IPOB. Not one. There was no proven body count, no documented violent atrocity, no forensic record of terror. Just an executive label stamped by a compliant judge behind closed doors, without firing a single notice to the targeted group.
1. THE SUPPRESSED TRUTH: JUSTICE BINTA NYAKO’S SUBSISTING INTER PARTES JUDGMENT
Before the Federal Government orchestrated its secret judicial coup, the question of IPOB’s legality was directly tested in a full, open, inter partes trial where both sides fought in broad daylight.
On 1 March 2017, Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court, Abuja—presiding over the substantive criminal charge against Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and three others—struck out six counts of the charge because the prosecution failed to produce a single shred of evidence establishing that IPOB was an unlawful or terrorist society.
The legal consequence was immediate, binding, and absolute:
The Federal Government presented zero evidence.
The court made a subsisting judicial determination clearing IPOB of the "unlawful society" label.
The Federal Government never appealed that judgment.
That ruling became an unassailable inter partes judicial finding. Under settled Nigerian law, the Federal Government was legally barred under the strict doctrine of issue estoppel from resurrecting that dead allegation elsewhere.
2. THE JUDICIAL AMBUSH: FORUM SHOPPING BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
Having been utterly humiliated before Justice Nyako for lack of evidence, the Federal Government executed a shameless judicial end-run.
Barely six months later, in September 2017, the prosecution bypassed Justice Nyako—the very judge handling the active trial—and ran to another courtroom in the same building. They approached Justice Abdul Adamu Kafarati via a secret, fair-hearing-denying ex parte application, deliberately suppressing and concealing Justice Nyako’s subsisting March 1 ruling.
Justice Kafarati rubber-stamped the proscription order in the dark. It was the ultimate judicial ambush: a total denial of fair hearing under Section 36(1) of the 1999 Constitution, designed to manufacture an illegal weapon when open trial had failed.
3. THE COURT OF APPEAL PERVERSION AND OMOTOSHO’S CONVICTION-AT-ALL-COST MENTALITY
The legal mockery reached a staggering crescendo when IPOB appealed that secret proscription to the Court of Appeal. In a ruling that shocked the legal conscience, Barka Akawu, JCA, held the grotesque position that constitutional Section 36 fair hearing protections did not apply to IPOB! That appalling ruling was promptly dragged to the Supreme Court, where it remains a pending controversy.
Justice Omotosho knew this entire dirty judicial history. He knew the proscription was pending before the apex court. He knew Barka Akawu’s rationale was so legally indefensible that he did not even dare to reference or rely on the Court of Appeal judgment in his own trial record!
Instead, driven by a conviction-at-all-cost mentality, Justice Omotosho bypassed the strict standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt required by Section 135 of the Evidence Act 2011. He declared from the bench:
“I hereby take judicial notice of the proscription of IPOB...”
Read that again: Justice Omotosho replaced strict proof with the arbitrary shortcut of "judicial notice"! While Sections 122 and 124 of the Evidence Act allow a judge to take notice that a document exists, taking judicial notice of a court order is NEVER the same as proving the truth of the criminal allegations inside it.
Omotosho deliberately turned a blind eye to the superior, fair-hearing-compliant judgment of Justice Nyako that favored the defense, and eagerly grabbed the fair-hearing-denying ex parte order of Justice Kafarati to cage Mazi Nnamdi Kanu!
4. THE CONSTITUTIONAL NULLITY: AB INITIO AND INCURABLE
Justice Omotosho ignored the foundational pillar of Nigerian constitutional jurisprudence established by the Supreme Court in Madukolu v. Nkemdilim (1962) and Skenconsult Ltd v. Ukey (1981):
Any judgment, order, or proceeding that emanates from a denial of the constitutional right to a fair hearing under Section 36 is not merely voidable—it is null, void ab initio, and of zero legal consequence.
An ex parte proscription order obtained by hiding a subsisting judgment—and failing to disclose even a single documented act of terrorism—is an incurable fair-hearing nullity. A trial judge who adopts that nullity via "judicial notice" commits an unpardonable blunder that destroys the court's jurisdiction.
CONCLUSION: A CONVICTION BUILT ON A JUDICIAL CRIME
Justice Omotosho closed his eyes to the law, ignored a binding judgment of his own court, dodged the toxic Court of Appeal ruling, elevated a secret ex parte order over constitutional fair hearing, and substituted "judicial notice" for actual proof of terrorism to legitimize a black-market proscription that has soaked the South East in blood.
NYAKO CLEARED IPOB IN OPEN COURT FOR LACK OF EVIDENCE. THE STATE RAN TO KAFARATI IN THE DARK EX PARTE WITH ZERO PROVEN CASUALTIES OR TERRORIST ACTS. OMOTOSHO BURIED NYAKO’S JUDGMENT, TWISTED "JUDICIAL NOTICE" TO BYPASS PROOF BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT, AND HANDED DOWN A CONVICTION BUILT ON BLOOD AND DECEIT.
The proscription is an absolute nullity. The trial is tainted by undeniable bias. The judgment is an incurable legal carcass.
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