The trial and conviction of Biafran agitator, Simon Ekpa, in Finland present a contrast to the Nigerian justice system and expose the unsustainable and seemingly lackadaisical approach to criminal litigation. From all indications, the lawsuits involving Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan may also take eternity to resolve, or perhaps until everybody is tired or amenable to out-of-court settlement. The debilitating prolongation of court cases, however, poses grave risks to individual liberty and national security, as the IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu case is showing. There is, therefore, a crying need for reform, reform capable of refining and streamlining legal and judicial procedures, and staving off the global ridicule directed at Nigeria’s justice system.
Mr Kanu’s case took all of 10 years to resolve one way or the other, after years of drama that evoked escapades of The Scarlet Pimpernel, strong-arm military tactics, and indefensible legal twists and turns. Arrested in 2015, granted bail in 2017 and jumped bail shortly thereafter, rearrested in 2021 through extraordinary rendition and rearraigned, detoured to the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court for about a year, and in 2025, shorn of any other legal trickery, he was finally taken through eight months of trial that culminated in his conviction last November. He had done and said enough, including botching his own case by his histrionics and self-representation, to merit conviction more than twice over. But it took 10 years of unflattering legal drama to reach that facile conclusion.
Mr Ekpa is Finnish, and a soldier to boot. He is reportedly familiar with Finland’s legal field, having worked as an intern in his ex-wife’s law firm. It would be surprising if he thought Finland’s justice system was as laborious and inefficient as Nigeria’s. Perhaps his 2023 arrest and acquittal over alleged illegal fundraising lured him into the excesses that saw him rearrested and detained in November 2024. Whatever his motivations, once his trial on terrorism-related charges commenced in May 2024, it was slam-bang downhill until he was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison last September. Four crazy months, and it was all over, a solid two months before Mr Kanu, whose trial began about 10 years ago, was hauled into jail in Nigeria. It was a mortifying study in contrasts.
But Nigeria is incurably optimistic about everything, never one to be taken aback by minor issues like prolonging a trial for more than a decade when a few months would be more than enough. So, the country does not learn from experience and history. Senator Natasha, as she is better known rather than the formal Sen. Akpoti-Uduaghan, appears also embroiled in a potentially elongated trial over criminal defamation and contempt charges. The suits, other than one from herself, were brought against her by the federal government, senate president Godswill Akpabio, and Mrs Akpabio. Begun in February 2025 with a suit against Sen. Akpabio for N100bn, the litigation has grown into a countersuit by Senator Akpabio for N200bn, by Mrs Akpabio for N350bn, and a follow-up criminal defamation suit by the federal government that promises to be exhilarating. Already, one of the cases has been adjourned till February 2026. It is just the beginning of lawsuits destined to be dragged into a long dark maze of legal sleights of hand.
What baffles nearly everyone except defendants in these convoluted cases is how Nigeria’s judicial authorities have seemed helpless over the delay tactics often employed by litigants and their counsels. Land cases are even more notorious for elongation. In land disputes, a claimant gets all of 12 years to file his case, but as a result of gridlock in the court system, or procedural issues, or cross-appeals at multiple levels, or the difficulties encountered in evidence gathering, the suit can snake its way through the courts for decades. Nigerians seem to have reconciled themselves to that atrocious judicial slow motion. But to subject a crime case to 10 years of trial, not to talk of perhaps many more years of appeal, is truly bewildering. Reform is desperately needed, and Mr Ekpa’s case in Finland should shame Nigeria into looking for a way out.
Reform is urgent, as Mr Kanu’s case makes very obvious. By prolonging a criminal trial, a charismatic defendant can sometimes turn the table against the state and complicate or even neutralise the charges. By lasting 10 years, Mr Kanu ended up becoming even more charismatic to his heedless supporters, and in the process entrancing, if not bewitching, a whole region. The enlightened probably saw through his legal chicaneries, and were horrified by Mr Kanu’s idiosyncrasies; but like most societies, the enlightened are often in the minority. The IPOB leader has signified his readiness to appeal; and if he loses at the Court of Appeal, it is certain he will take his case to the Supreme Court. The Southeast wants a political solution, but that is unlikely to happen until the litigation comes to an end.
Mr Kanu’s case exposes nearly all the loopholes in Nigeria’s legal system. Judicial administrators cannot insist they don’t know what to do. The evidence is before them, and they have enough bright minds to determine what to do and how to plug the loopholes. They must not allow the Sen. Natasha case suffer the same excesses and manipulations as the Kanu case. If the Sen. Ike Ekweremadu organ harvesting case lasted a measly 10 and a half months from arrest to conviction in the United Kingdom, Nigeria’s judicial authorities should be deeply mortified that Mr Kanu took 10 years off them, and they still seem casually prepared to make the Sen. Natasha case last for years. By the next adjourned date, the senator’s case will be hugging one year. All for what? Nigeria must not forget that the Flt. Lt. John J. Rawlings court-martial did not last one month before he was sprung from detention because of his charismatic displays and other factors. Lengthy cases are a disservice to any nation, and can be very divisive, as the 1894-1906 Captain Alfred Dreyfus case also illustrated in France. Whatever they do, and notwithstanding the desire to be thorough, Nigeria’s judicial authorities must not be apathetical to the crucial matter of fighting the cancer of delayed justice or prolonged trial.
