The Federal High Court in Abuja has ruled that Nnamdi Kanu, the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), must face trial in his ongoing terrorism case.

Delivering the ruling on Thursday, Justice James Omotosho dismissed Kanu’s no-case submission, stating that the prosecution had presented sufficient evidence linking him to terrorism-related activities. The judge ordered Kanu to open his defence on October 8, 2025.

According to Justice Omotosho, the prosecution’s exhibits and witness testimonies raise “serious allegations” that merit a full trial.

In a separate directive, the court also ordered the President of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) to constitute a special medical team to evaluate Kanu’s current health condition. The judge mandated the committee to submit its report within eight days.

The court instructed that the medical panel, consisting of 8 to 10 members including a cardiologist and a neurologist, must assess whether the Department of State Services (DSS) medical facility is adequately equipped to manage Kanu’s health needs. The committee is also empowered to use any medical facility in the country during its investigation.

Justice Omotosho further directed that the Chief Medical Director of the National Hospital, Abuja, be included as a member of the committee. Based on the committee’s findings, the court will determine whether Kanu should be transferred to the National Hospital for further treatment.

The trial continues amidst growing public and international attention surrounding Kanu’s detention and the broader implications for the separatist movement he leads.

A victim of kidnap was shot in the leg by kidnappers for failing to have sufficient money in his bank account.

The kidnappers said the shooting is to teach him a lesson.

This was even after they had already withdrawn two million naira from his bank account.

According to the Delta Police Command’s spokesperson, Bright Edafe, operatives have arrested three suspected kidnappers, who confessed that they collected N2 million ransom from their victim and still shot him.

The suspects, identified as Chukwuebuka Nka, Uche Okechukwu, and Somto Chukwuma, allegedly shot the victim in the leg after discovering he did not have enough money in his account.

According to the statement, the arrests followed a distress call that a young man had been kidnapped from his residence in Ogwashi-Uku.

Edafe said operatives tracked the suspects to a bush in Ogwashi-Uku, where the victim was rescued with a gunshot wound.

According to him, investigations led to the arrest of Chukwuebuka Nka and Uche Okechukwu in Anambra State, where the victim’s white Toyota Venza was also recovered.

He added that, based on the suspects’ confessions, operatives raided their hideout in Agidiase village, Ogwashi-Uku, and arrested the third suspect.

The suspects then led the police to their hideout, where their operational vehicle and a network jammer circuit device were also recovered.

Inmates in Ecuador fought each other with guns and explosives in a riot that left 13 prisoners and a guard dead, police said.

The mayhem was the latest in a series of bloodbaths to engulf gang-ridden, overcrowded prisons in a once-peaceful country now at ground zero of the violent Latin American drug trade.

An unknown number of inmates escaped in the clash between rival gangs, during which another 14 people were injured, a masked police officer identified as commander Colonel William Calle told the Ecuavisa channel.

Thirteen inmates have been recaptured.

Calle said gunfire broke out in the early morning hours, alerting prison guards and police who rushed to that part of the prison in Machala, in southwest Ecuador near the Peruvian border.

One guide was killed as he entered, and others were taken hostage, said the officer.

Calle said the confrontation lasted about 40 minutes, during which inmates “fired guns, threw bombs, and grenades.”

The dead inmates belonged to the rival Los Choneros and Los Lobos gangs, two of the biggest drug trafficking groups in Ecuador.

Police said the violence was the result of “fighting between gangs” in a facility housing double the number of inmates it was designed for.

Organized crime has transformed Ecuador, a country of about 17 million, into one of the most violent nations in the world.

Calle said “control has already been regained” over the prison.

He did not specify the fate of the hostages or how many inmates were on the run.

– ‘Internal armed conflict’ –

Nestled between the globe’s top two cocaine exporters — Colombia and Peru — Ecuador has seen violence spiral in recent years as rival gangs with ties to Mexican and Colombian cartels vie for control.

More than 70 percent of all cocaine produced in the world now passes through Ecuador’s ports, according to government data.

Gang wars have largely played out inside the country’s prisons, where some 500 inmates have been killed since February 2021, often in gruesome fashion — their bodies dismembered and burnt.

Ecuador’s biggest prison massacre happened in 2021, when over 100 inmates died in clashes in the port of Guayaquil in the southwest.

Prisoners went live on social media to broadcast the violence, showing decapitated and charred bodies.

Last year, gang members took scores of prison guards hostage after the jailbreak of narco boss, Jose Adolfo Macias, aka “Fito,” while allies on the outside detonated bombs and held a television presenter at gunpoint live on air.

President Daniel Noboa declared a “state of internal armed conflict and Fito — the boss of Los Choneros — was recaptured in June.

He had been serving a 34-year sentence since 2011 for involvement in organized crime, drug trafficking, and murder, but continued pulling the strings of the criminal underworld from behind bars.

Videos emerged of Fito holding wild parties, some with fireworks, illustrating the lawlessness of Ecuador’s prisons.

Los Choneros has ties to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, Colombia’s Gulf Clan — the world’s largest cocaine exporter — and Balkan mafias, according to the Ecuadorian Organized Crime Observatory.

AFP