Nigeria's separatist leader Nnamdi Kanu should stand trial and answer to charges that include terrorism and broadcasting falsehoods, a High Court judge ruled on Friday.
Kanu, a British citizen who leads the banned Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), denies all the charges linked to broadcasts he made between 2018 and last year.
A judge on Friday ruled that Kanu will stand trial on seven counts of terrorism out of 15 and struck out eight of the charges which the government brought against the IPOB leader.
The hearing was held via camera. A federal court judge ruled on Thursday that all trials of terrorism cases in Nigeria will henceforth be held on camera.
Separately, Kanu's lead lawyer, Mike Ozekhome, said Thursday that Kanu cannot be tried on charges of terrorism and broadcast falsehoods because he was not extradited from Kenya based on the same charges.
The Kenyan high commissioner has denied his country's involvement. Kanu disappeared from Nigeria after jumping bail in 2017. He was arrested after years on the run.
IPOB, which Kanu founded in 2014, is pressing for the secession of a part of southeast Nigeria where the majority of the population belongs to the Igbo ethnic group. Authorities view IPOB as a terrorist group. IPOB says it wants to achieve independence through nonviolent means.
An attempt by Igbo separatists to secede as the Republic of Biafra in 1967 – the year that Kanu was born – triggered a three-year civil war that killed more than 1 million people.
IPOB has ordered Igbos in the southeast to "sit at home," a form of civil disobedience to show solidarity with Kanu since his arrest and trials in Abuja, crippling small businesses and other economic activities.
