The United Kingdom has been accused by the American Veterans of Igbo Descent (AVID), a group of retired and active US military members of Igbo descent, of facilitating the “persecution” of its citizen, Nnamdi Kanu, by the Nigerian government.
The head of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Kanu, is a British citizen.
Kanu cannot be tried and found guilty under a nonexistent law, according to a statement released by AVID on Monday and signed by its president, Dr. Sylvester Onyia.
Kanu and his defense team have been claiming that the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition Act) 2022 revoked the Terrorism Prevention Amendment Act 2013, which was the basis for his charges.
In a statement titled “A dead charge cannot kill a living man,” AVID criticized the UK of remaining silent about the obvious injustice that the Nigerian government had inflicted on Kanu.
AVID emphasized that the UK government’s silence on the issue amounted to active complicity and that the country cannot claim ignorance of the trial’s illegal nature.
“The United Kingdom cannot pretend not to know,” the statement read. Additionally, its silence has become active complicity. The United Kingdom, whose citizens are being subjected to this legal abomination, is well aware of the situation in Nigeria. However, it has opted for diplomatic paralysis, apathy, and silence.
“This quiet is not impartial. It’s not passive. It’s not just careless. Now, it has turned into complicity. Because the precise regulation that is currently being broken on a daily basis against its own citizens was created by the United Kingdom itself, not Nigeria, the United States, or the European Union.
In Entick v. Carrington (1765) 19 Howell’s State Trials 1029 at 1066, Lord Camden established the fundamental premise more than three centuries ago in the United Kingdom: “If it is law, it will be found in our books.” It is not legal if it cannot be found there. Nullum crimen sine lege, which states that “no written law, no crime; no valid law, no valid charge,” is still the most straightforward interpretation of the doctrine.
“No man is to be punished but for a clear and certain breach of the law,” stated William Blackstone, the most quoted legal authority in the English-speaking world, on page 44 of his Commentaries on the Laws of England (1769), Vol. I. In The Law of the Constitution (1885), pp. 188–189, A.V. Dicey, the founder of the modern rule of law, emphasized it even more: “Where there is no law, there is no offence; where there is no offence, there can be no punishment.”
In The Rule of Law (2010), p. 41, the most esteemed contemporary lawyer in the United Kingdom, Lord Bingham, reiterated the same principle in the twenty-first century: “The criminal law must be accessible and so far as possible intelligible, clear, and predictable.”
AVID cautioned that the UK’s deliberate complicity in Nnamdi Kanu’s persecution through silence would be remembered by history.
In Kokkinakis v. Greece (1993) 17 EHRR 397, the European Court of Human Rights, which the UK assisted in establishing, summarized the centuries-old British theory, stating that “an offence must be clearly defined in law,” according to the statement.
Nigeria is transgressing this same premise. Furthermore, the United Kingdom, the world’s creator of the concept and the country that disseminated it to its colonies, Commonwealth, and international human rights legislation, is now turning a blind eye as its own person is being prosecuted on a false charge that the Nigerian Supreme Court has dismissed.
six counts under a law that was abolished on May 12, 2022.
The UK is aware of this. The UK is aware of this. This doctrine was created in the United Kingdom. However, the UK remains silent. This silence is no longer a sign of ignorance. It is no longer carelessness. It’s a diplomatic green light for persecution, an endorsement.
“The UK is permitting its own citizens to be persecuted. The UK has abandoned its own legal legacy, its own citizens, and the rule of law it once defended by refusing to speak, step in, or even acknowledge the ridiculousness of prosecuting a British person on a dead, abolished, and judicially buried charge.
“A government is not just failing in duty if it refuses to protect its citizens’ most fundamental legal right, which is the freedom from prosecution under a law that has been repealed. The persecutor is being encouraged by it. by keeping quiet. through compliance. by implicit agreement. through diplomatic indifference. History will document this as the humiliation of the United Kingdom, according to AVID.
On November 20, Justice James Omotosho will render a decision in Kanu’s trial.
Speaking before to the verdict, AVID contended that the matter shouldn’t have reached the judgment stage because it had been dead for years.
“On November 20, 2025, Justice James Omotosho will attempt to deliver judgment in a criminal case that has been legally dead for years,” the statement continued. He is facing Count 7, which is the exact twin of the previous Count 15, which the Nigerian Supreme Court reviewed on December 15, 2023, and ruled that “the offence as laid does not exist in the body of our laws.” Count 15 is dismissed due to incompetence.
It was never changed by the prosecution. The Supreme Court specifically instructed them to reframe it under the correct law (CEMA), but they never did. They were never told to obey the supreme court by Justice Omotosho. Rather, they merely changed the corpse’s number, and on March 29, 2025, they made Mazi Nnamdi Kanu enter a new plea to a crime that had already been buried by the nation’s highest court.
“The Terrorism (Prevention) Act 2011 as amended in 2013—a statute that the National Assembly repealed and replaced on May 12, 2022, three years prior to the new arraignment—is the basis for the remaining six counts.”
The claim made by Kanu and his defense team that “no court in Nigeria in 2025 has jurisdiction to try any citizen, under any circumstances, on the strength of a repealed law or a count the Supreme Court has declared non-existent” was reiterated by AVID.
It’s not a trial. Wearing judicial robes, this is a constitutional disgrace. The 1999 Constitution’s Section 36(12) is not a recommendation. A law that has been repealed is not “in force.” A count that the Supreme Court rules to be “non-existent” is not a charge. According to the statement, an individual who has been held for years on such a charge is not an accused person but rather a hostage.
In its November 20 ruling, the group of retired and active US military soldiers of Igbo descent requested that the court dismiss the lawsuit against Kanu.
“We, American Veterans of Igbo Descent—men and women who have battled and suffered for constitutional democracy—state unequivocally that Justice Omotosho is not facing any legitimate charges.
Therefore, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s ongoing detention is not justified.
“We demand that on November 20, 2025, Justice Omotosho do the only thing permitted by the Nigerian Supreme Court and the Constitution: strike out the entire accusation and order Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s immediate, unconditional release. Justice cannot be served by anything less.
It is an act of judicial disobedience to the Constitution. The Supreme Court is being disregarded. And the United Kingdom’s silence is aiding and abetting this persecution. The entire globe is observing. The remark went on to say, “History is recording.”
