1. THE CHALLENGE THAT ENDED THE PROSECUTION
At the peak of the jurisdictional exchanges on 4 November 2025, following repeated evasions by the court, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu turned directly to the prosecution and issued a challenge that no competent prosecutor could lawfully evade.
Direct Record Challenge (Near-Verbatim)
KANU:
“My Lord, I am now asking the prosecution.
Let Chief Awomolo stand up and tell this court the law under which I am being tried.
Let him read it into the record.
Let him show this court the statute.”
This was not rhetoric.
It was a procedural demand rooted firmly in criminal jurisprudence.
2. WHAT FOLLOWED: TOTAL PROSECUTORIAL SILENCE
What followed is extraordinary and undeniable from the court record.
Chief Adewola Awomolo, SAN:
- did not rise;
- did not object;
- did not identify any statute;
- did not request time;
- did not deny the challenge.
The record is silent — and that silence is legally deafening.
In an adversarial criminal system, silence at that moment constitutes admission.
In plain terms:
The prosecutor could not name the law under which the Defendant was being tried.
3. WHY THIS SILENCE IS LEGALLY DEVASTATING
A criminal prosecutor has three non-delegable duties:
- To identify the offence-creating statute;
- To justify the court’s jurisdiction;
- To oppose jurisdictional challenges with law.
On 4 November 2025, Chief Awomolo performed none.
When directly challenged to “read the law into the record”, he cited:
- no Terrorism Prevention Act;
- no Terrorism Prevention (Amendment) Act;
- no savings clause;
- no transitional provision.
Because any response would have exposed the collapse of the case.
This was not neutrality.
It was self-preservation through silence.
4. HOW JUSTICE OMOTOSHO STEPPED IN TO PROTECT THE SILENCE
Immediately after the prosecution failed to respond, Justice Binta Nyako Omotosho intervened—not to compel the prosecutor to speak, but to shield the silence.
Rather than ordering the prosecution to identify the law, the court:
- redirected the discussion;
- deferred the jurisdictional issue to “final address”;
- warned the Defendant about “waiver”;
- pressed the proceedings toward defence.
An Institutional Tandem Exposed
- Kanu demanded the law;
- Awomolo could not provide it;
- Omotosho prevented the consequence.
This was the precise moment the trial ceased to be adversarial.
5. WHY THIS MOMENT CANNOT BE EXPLAINED AWAY
This was not a minor lapse.
If Chief Awomolo knew the law, he would have read it.
If he believed jurisdiction existed, he would have defended it.
If he had lawful instructions, he would have spoken.
He did none of these because:
There was no safe statute to place on the record.
6. PUBLIC TRANSLATION (NO LEGAL JARGON)
For ordinary citizens, this is what happened:
A man was on trial.
He asked, “What law says I committed a crime?”
He asked the prosecutor to answer.
The prosecutor could not.
The judge stopped the question and forced the trial forward anyway.
That is not justice.
That is institutional coercion.
7. PROSECUTORIAL COMPLICITY, NOT MERE INEPTITUDE
This silence cannot be dismissed as incompetence.
Chief Awomolo:
- is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria;
- understood the legal consequences;
- knew silence would invite judicial rescue;
- relied on the court to carry what the prosecution could not.
This is complicity by omission.
8. WHY THIS SINGLE EXCHANGE ANCHORS MULTIPLE GROUNDS OF APPEAL
That single challenge and the resulting silence substantiate:
- want of jurisdiction;
- absence of an offence known to law;
- violation of Section 36(12) of the Constitution;
- abuse of judicial process;
- prosecutorial misconduct;
- judicial bias through intervention.
It is evidentiary gold.
9. CONCLUSION
On 4 November 2025, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu achieved what no defence counsel could have done better.
He compelled the prosecution to speak the law—
and proved, on the record, that it could not.
Chief Awomolo’s silence is now part of the permanent case history.
It cannot be erased.
It cannot be cured.
And it cannot be explained away.
By
Onyedikachi Ifedi, Esq.
