The family of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, has drawn local and international attention to the Federal Government’s unwillingness to join issues on proceedings seeking the IPOB leader’s freedom.

In its letter of August 18, 2026, the family expressed concern over the delay, saying Kanu has written the Chief Justice of Nigeria and President of the Court of Appeal asking for immediate listing of his cases, even as it threatened to notify the United States Congress, Israeli Knesset and International Bar Association.

The letter signed by Prince Emmanuel Kanu on behalf of the family reads: “The Okwu-Kanu Family wishes to inform Nigerians and the international community that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has now written separately to the Chief Justice of Nigeria and the President of the Court of Appeal requesting the immediate listing and hearing of his two pending cases.

The family said Kanu commenced proceedings before the Supreme Court on November 7, 2025, challenging the legality of the Supreme Court’s remittal judgment of 15 December 2023, in which the Federal Republic of Nigeria was served, but for over nine months has filed no substantive response and the case has not been listed for hearing.

Kanu’s family also said a separate appeal was filed on June 5, 2026, before the Court of Appeal challenging the November 20, 2025, conviction and life sentence and served on the Respondent, but again the prescribed time for the Federal Government to file its Respondent’s Brief has expired.

“The reason is simple. The Federal Government has shown no sign of willingness to join issues in either proceeding, while Mazi Nnamdi Kanu remains in detention serving a life sentence.

“He is not asking for special treatment. He is asking the Nigerian judiciary to show the same urgency when his freedom is at stake that it showed when the Federal Government wanted to stop his release.”

The family argued that, “On 13 October 2022, the Court of Appeal delivered its final judgment discharging Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and quashing the criminal counts against him,” which it said “was an acquittal-equivalent discharge,” but the Federal Government refused to release him.

It contended that, “By 28 October 2022—barely two weeks later—the Federal Government had filed, listed, argued and obtained a civil stay of execution from a differently constituted panel of the same Court of Appeal, even though the criminal appeal had already been finally determined and the Court was functus officio,” which stopped Mazi Nnamdi Kanu from enjoying the liberty granted by his acquittal-equivalent discharge.

The letter further reads, “In fourteen days, the machinery of the Court of Appeal moved from an acquittal-equivalent discharge to a civil stay that kept Mazi Nnamdi Kanu in detention.

“The criminal appeal had already been finally determined. The Court was functus officio. Yet a differently constituted panel was assembled, and civil procedure was deployed to restrain liberty arising from a concluded criminal proceeding.

“That is the constitutionally impermissible hybridisation of civil and criminal procedure at the heart of the 28 October 2022 order.”

The letter insisted that a civil stay is neither a criminal charge nor a remand warrant and cannot revive quashed criminal counts.

“And a civil procedural rule cannot be transformed into a criminal power to keep a discharged person in detention.

“To our knowledge, never before in Nigeria has a civil procedural rule been deployed in this manner to deny liberty to a person following an acquittal-equivalent discharge. Mazi Nnamdi Kanu appears to be the first and only person subjected to it.”

The family wondered why Nigeria’s appellate machinery moved within fourteen days when the Federal Government wanted to stop Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s release, but cannot show comparable urgency when Mazi Nnamdi Kanu asks those same appellate institutions to determine whether his continued detention and life sentence are lawful?

Without asking for special favours, the family called on the Supreme Court to list and hear the pending proceeding challenging the remittal judgment of 15 December 2023; the Court of Appeal to list and hear Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s appeal against his conviction and life sentence without further delay and the Federal Government to come before the courts and defend the judicial outcomes upon which Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s continued detention depends.

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