Judiciary

The court of appeal, Abuja division, has granted the application of the Lagos state government as a co-respondent in the appeal filed by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS). The FIRS is challenging the judgment of the federal high court, Port Harcourt, which restrained the agency from collecting VAT and personal income tax (PIT) in Rivers state. At the lower court, the FIRS had appealed for a stay of execution, but the court dismissed it on the basis that it would “negate the principle of equity”. Consequently, FIRS went to the court of appeal. On September 10, the Attorney-general of Lagos, Moyosore Onigbanjo, applied to be joined as a party in the appeal. The state had also passed a VAT bill into law. Onigbanjo had submitted that the outcome of the appeal would have ...

The Indigenous People of Biafra has warned that it will declare a one-month sit-at-home protest in Biafraland if its leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, is not presented in court on October 21. The Media and Publicity Secretary of the secessionist group, Emma Powerful, made this known on Wednesday in a statement made available to our correspondent in Awka, Anambra State. He said IPOB got from a reliable source that the Department of State Services would not bring Kanu to court on October 21 as a ploy to continue to incarcerate him. He said, “The attention of the Indigenous People of Biafra has been drawn to the plot by Nigeria government and her DSS in Abuja not to produce our leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, to court on October 21, 2021, the date he is due to appear in court to start his case. ...

The Department of State Services, DSS, prevented the lawyers representing the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu from seeing him yesterday despite a court order permitting routine visit of his legal team. According to a statement issued by Kanu’s lead counsel, Ifeanyi Ejiofor and obtained by SaharaReporters on Friday, the DSS said "that the person assigned to receive us during yesterday's visit was on a special assignment.” Ejiofor stated that he was in the secret police’s office with a constitutional lawyer from the United States (US), Bruce Fein, but they were prevented from seeing the separatist leader despite meeting formal notification and existing procedures on visitation. Fein had in May filed a lawsuit on behalf of IPOB in the US to revoke the si...