Any Nigerian judge that dared to preside over the trial of Nnamdi Kanu in any court within Nigeria would end up at the International Criminal Court(ICC), Bruce Fein, the International counsel for the detained Biafra activist, has warned.
He handed down the warning in a letter he addressed to Justice James Omotosho, dated October 28, 2025, in which he remjnded the trial judge that no court in Nigeria has jurisdiction to try Kanu on the alleged treason charges brought against him by the Federal Government of Nigeria.
Fein explained that the IPOB leader’s extraordinary rendition from Kenya had been declared illegal at international and local levels of jurisprudence thereby ousting the jurisdiction of Nigerian courts.
The international counsel stated that “the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, and Nigerian courts have both determined that the Federal Government of Nigeria committed multiple crimes in forcibly bringing Mazi Nnamdi Kanu within the putative jurisdiction” of Omotosho’s Court.
He specifically warned Justice Omotosho that he “will be vulnerable to prosecution before the International Criminal Court(ICC). You will have been unfaithful to your professional duty to see that justice is done”.
Kanu’s international counsel argued that in presiding over Kanu’s trial, theFein judge should not think that he was merely performing his duty, adding that “following orders is no defense to universal crimes”.
“If you refrain from dismissing all outstanding charges against Mr. Kanu for lack of jurisdiction, you will be legally implicated in the crimes perpetrated by the Government of Nigeria in bringing Mr. Kanu before your tribunal,” he told Omotosho.
“No government should profit from its own criminality. That has been binding law from time immemorial,” he said.
“Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. Nothing is more unjust than a government profiting from its own crimes,” Bruce asserted.
He quoted legendary United States Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, in Olmstead v. United States (1928), to drive home his claims that Nigeria’s FG employed unlawful means to in forcibly bringing Kanu from Kenya.
He said: “In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously.
“Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious.
“If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.
“To declare that, in the administration of the criminal law, the end justifies the means — to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal — would bring terrible retribution”.
According to Fein, FG’s “crimes include kidnapping, torture, and extraordinary rendition. These are universal jus cogens crimes under international law binding on Nigeria with or without its consent”..
He said that the listed international crimes “oust Nigerian courts of jurisdiction to prosecute Mr. Kanu to prevent the Government of Nigeria from profiting from its own crimes”.
The international counsel lack of jurisdiction of Nigerian courts in Kanu’s trial was in line with the UN Working Group in paragraph 107 of its July 20, 2022 Opinion (which) directed the “immediate unconditional” release of Mr. Kanu by the Government of Nigeria.
