A former lead counsel to jailed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader, Nnamdi Kanu, Ifeanyi Ejiofor, has blamed Thursday’s conviction of the separatist leader on what he described as ‘amateur legal showmanship’ and ‘social-media theatrics’ by individuals who later took over the defence.
Ejiofor, who led Kanu’s legal team for nearly a decade before withdrawing from the case in 2024, alleged in a statement on Saturday that the trial was pushed into a “judicial ambush” due to the actions of people he called “clueless clowns” and “entertainers in wigs.”
Kanu was on Thursday sentenced to life imprisonment by a Federal High Court in Abuja after being convicted on seven terrorism-related charges.
His conviction has continued to generate nationwide reactions, particularly in the South-East, where political and socio-cultural leaders have renewed calls for dialogue and a political resolution.
Ejiofor began representing Kanu following his first arrest in 2015.
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Over the years, several Senior Advocates of Nigeria, including Chief Kanu Agabi and Chief Mike Ozekhome, also joined the defence at various stages.
In October 2022, the Court of Appeal discharged and acquitted Kanu, ruling that his extraordinary rendition from Kenya was unlawful.
However, the Federal Government successfully obtained a stay of execution, which kept him in detention while the trial continued.
Following internal disagreements, Ejiofor formally withdrew in December 2024, handing over to Ozekhome.
In his statement, Ejiofor claimed that before his exit, the defence was close to achieving a new legal success following the Court of Appeal judgment.
According to him, sustained pressure, strategic diplomacy, and airtight legal manoeuvring had positioned the team for another major relief, but strategic information was allegedly leaked to individuals he said lacked understanding of the complexity of the case.
He accused these individuals of derailing ongoing engagements and ‘treacherously orchestrating a change in the status quo,’ resulting in the dissolution of the legal arrangement he helped build.
Ejiofor criticised what he described as the encouragement of self-representation and the prioritisation of social-media content over legal preparation.
He said: “Instead of crafting a legal strategy, they crafted Instagram stories. Instead of mastering case law, they mastered camera angles,” adding that their actions “created contradictions and inconsistencies that prosecutors documented and later used against Kanu.”
He also lamented the withdrawal of experienced senior lawyers, questioning why “globally respected legal minds” were “disengaged at the most critical moment.”
With Kanu now facing life imprisonment, Ejiofor said any meaningful rescue effort would require “cleaning up the monumental damage” and drastically reducing publicity around the case.
He called for renewed engagement by seasoned legal experts and a strategic, less public approach going forward.
He concluded: “This is not the time for comedy. It is time for competence. Time for real advocacy.”
See full statement below:
NNAMDI KANU’S AVOIDABLE ORDEAL: HOW AMATEUR LEGAL SHOWMEN LED A HIGH-PROFILE CASE INTO A JUDICIAL AMBUSH
WHEN JUSTICE BECAME A PERFORMANCE: THE TRAGIC CONSEQUENCE OF TURNING NNAMDI KANU’S TRIAL INTO CONTENT
I had genuinely intended, out of sheer exhaustion and out of respect for the sensitivity of this moment, to refrain from revisiting this saga. But the avalanche of calls, messages, and trembling voices from our people has made silence no longer an option.
I am therefore compelled to offer sober introspection, especially as someone who successfully steered this very case for nearly a decade, securing landmark victories, unassailable legal milestones, and enduring a long trail of threats, assassination attempts, and brushes with death. Through all of this, Grace remained my only constant protection.
However, after Thursday’s spectacle, correcting the wild conjectures, poorly manufactured narratives, and brazen misinformation now circulating like a digital epidemic has become absolutely necessary.
THE FIRST REVELATION THEY WON’T TELL YOU
During the period our team handled this matter, from 2015 to December 2024, up until Prof. Mike Ozekhome, SAN, assumed leadership of the legal team in 2022; we were on the threshold of securing yet another major relief for Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, particularly after the Court of Appeal discharged and acquitted him in 2022. Sustained pressure, strategic diplomacy, and airtight legal maneuvering had placed us on the verge of another monumental breakthrough.
Regrettably, certain sensitive details of this progress were, perhaps innocently, disclosed by Mazi Nnamdi Kanu to some of these clueless clowns. Rather than support a strategy they barely understood, they seized the information as an opportunity to derail the entire process and treacherously orchestrated a change in the status quo. Consequently, we exited the team, gloriously, and with our integrity intact.
Let us speak plainly:
A high-profile, internationally sensitive criminal trial is not a circus ring.
But once these bloated, delusional entertainers-in-wigs inserted themselves into the process, everything degenerated into a grotesque parody of legal representation.
Instead of crafting legal strategy, they crafted Instagram stories.
Instead of mastering case law, they mastered camera angles.
At every court session, their priority wasn’t research or preparation, it was posing, filming, updating, grandstanding, and “going viral.”
Meanwhile, the accused man’s fate hung by a thread.
THE MOST TRAGIC PART OF IT ALL
Even after the court explicitly warned that self-representation in a complex constitutional and criminal matter was dangerous, these “consultants” encouraged it, clapping like paid spectators in a village arena.
And so the unthinkable happened:
1. A trial that could have been paused, or avoided ab initio, had the proper methodology and engagement been applied.
2. A conviction that could have been prevented.
3. An outcome that was entirely avoidable, yet allowed to proceed under the guidance of legal lightweights intoxicated by social-media relevance.
They railroaded him, knowingly or unknowingly, into the savage pit of a full criminal trial, fully aware that other lawful avenues existed.
Even while the trial was ongoing, they busied themselves with dishing out falsehoods, half-truths, and misleading “updates” to an unsuspecting public.
Every lie told outside the courtroom became a landmine inside the courtroom.
Every exaggerated “update” became a contradiction the prosecution gleefully documented.
Every camera stunt became a professional embarrassment.
And now, instead of remorse, they have resumed their post-trial routine:
fresh videos, fresh lies, fresh false hopes, desperate for clicks.
The tragedy continues because the vulnerable still believe them.
THE GREATEST PUZZLE OF ALL
How did foremost legal minds, globally respected Senior Advocates of Nigeria such as Chief Kanu Agabi, SAN, Chief Onyechi Ikpeazu, SAN, and other erudite members of the Inner Bar; men fully versed in the anatomy of high-wire criminal litigation, become disengaged at the most critical moment of the trial, only for mediocre adventurers to hijack a matter of international significance and reduce it to a TikTok legal carnival?
Who replaces world-class physicians with herbal storytellers during brain surgery?
Who replaces strategic diplomacy with reckless grandstanding?
Who replaces law with theatrics?
Only a system already preparing for disaster.
WHERE WE GO FROM HERE
For any meaningful rescue effort by globally respected legal experts, the first task must be to clean up the monumental damage inflicted by these self-advertising jesters. A comprehensive review of methodology, effective engagement, and drastically reduced publicity must precede any intervention. Only then can a coherent, sophisticated legal and political strategy be fashioned.
This is not the time for comedy.
Not the time for inflated egos.
And certainly not the time for social-media theatrics.
It is time for soberness.
Time for competence.
Time for real advocacy.
#EnoughIsEnough
Signed:
Sir Ifeanyi Ejiofor, Esq. (KSC)
November 22, 2025
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