Court strikes out Nnamdi Kanu’s motion seeking relocation from Sokoto prison

A Federal High Court in Abuja has struck out a motion ex parte filed by Nnamdi Kanu, the convicted self-acclaimed leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), seeking to be relocated from the Sokoto prison where he is currently being held.

In a ruling delivered on Tuesday, January 27, Justice James Omotosho held that the application was incompetent and that Kanu failed to comply with an earlier court order directing him to regularise the motion.

Justice Omotosho said the court had, on December 8, 2025, ordered Kanu to convert the motion ex parte to a motion on notice and serve it on parties that would be affected by any order made by the court.

“In respect of the application before this court, it has to do with an application that was brought incompetently, as per seeking the movements of the convict from where he is presently kept,” the judge said.

“The application is not competent. However, in the interest of justice, when it came up, the court gave a hint and urged that the same be converted, in other words, telling the applicant to go and file a motion on notice.”

Justice Omotosho noted that Kanu failed to comply with the directive within the stipulated time.

“The applicant, having not filed the motion on notice today, the 27th day of January, 2026, there is no application for determination before this court,” he said. “It is based on this that the motion ex parte is struck out as there is nothing to be determined.”

The ruling effectively brings an end to the application seeking Kanu’s relocation, following the court’s finding that due process was not followed.