Human rights lawyer and counsel to the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Barrister Ifeanyi Ejiofor, has raised serious concerns over recent terrorism-related proceedings at the Federal High Court in Abuja.
Ejiofor alleged that constitutional safeguards were undermined and that several detained Igbo youths have been subjected to prolonged unlawful detention, secretive trials, and pressure to plead guilty.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, June 17, 2026, Ejiofor warned that the Nigerian Constitution must not be sacrificed for political convenience or prosecutorial expediency.
“The Constitution is not a decorative manuscript to be admired in tranquillity and discarded in moments of political expediency,” he said.
“It is the supreme covenant between the State and the citizen, binding alike on the governed and those who govern.”
The lawyer questioned whether the pursuit of convictions could ever justify the erosion of constitutional rights, insisting that the right to a fair hearing remains a fundamental guarantee under Nigerian law.
“Recent events emanating from purported proceedings conducted before the Federal High Court, Abuja, have once again brought into sharp focus a profoundly troubling question: Can the pursuit of convictions ever justify the abandonment of constitutional safeguards?” Ejiofor stated.
According to him, Sections 35 and 36 of the 1999 Constitution provide protections against arbitrary detention, denial of legal representation, involuntary confessions, and other forms of executive overreach.
“Under our criminal justice system, the right to a fair hearing is neither a procedural luxury nor a charitable concession from the State,” he said.
“It is a fundamental constitutional guarantee entrenched under Sections 35 and 36 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended).”
Ejiofor said he initially welcomed reports that several Igbo detainees who have allegedly spent more than five years in detention without trial were finally being brought before the courts.
“It was therefore with cautious optimism that we received reports that several young Igbo men and women, fathers and youths alike, found themselves unjustly bundled together with ‘notorious hardened terrorists’, without any meaningful distinction between the innocent and the culpable,” he said.
However, he expressed dismay over reports from lawyers who he said monitored the proceedings.
“Regrettably, emerging accounts from those proceedings appear to have transformed what should have been a solemn judicial exercise into a matter that raises grave constitutional concerns,” Ejiofor said.
“From reports presently available to us, and obtained by our lawyers who were present in the courtrooms, the proceedings were conducted under an atmosphere of unusual secrecy.”
He further alleged that some defendants have been pressured into pleading guilty.
“More disturbing are allegations that some defendants were induced, pressured, or otherwise prevailed upon to enter guilty pleas to offences whose factual foundations they neither understood nor admitted,” he alleged.
Ejiofor also claimed that lawyers from his chambers were prevented from representing some of the accused persons.
“Equally troubling is the fact that legal practitioners from our office, who sought to represent some of these accused persons/defendants, were prevented from doing so and, in some instances, threatened with arrest should they remain within the courtroom,” he said.
The IPOB lawyer noted that a guilty plea cannot cure what he described as fundamental procedural defects.
“A guilty plea in criminal proceedings is not a magical incantation capable of curing fundamental procedural defects,” he said.
“Before any plea can attract legal validity, the court must satisfy itself that the plea is voluntary, unequivocal, informed, and entered without coercion, intimidation, inducement, or misunderstanding.
“Anything short of this constitutional threshold reduces the process to a mere ritualistic performance dressed in judicial robes.”
Ejiofor added, “The Constitution does not permit the State to manufacture convictions through fear, isolation, prolonged detention, or procedural ambush.”
The lawyer said some of the individuals who appeared before the court were among persons whose detention had allegedly been denied by security agencies for years.
“Particularly alarming is the fact that some of the individuals presented before the court were among persons whose detention had been repeatedly denied by security agencies over the years, even as litigation concerning their detention progressed through the superior courts up to the Supreme Court,” he said.
“This situation would expose a deeply disturbing contradiction. A citizen cannot simultaneously be non-existent in custody and yet appear years later before a court after spending half a decade within detention facilities.”
Ejiofor alleged that several of the accused were innocent and law-abiding youths arrested in 2021 and subsequently held in solitary confinement.
According to him, “Among those presented to the court as terrorists were several innocent, unarmed, and law-abiding Igbo youths, apprehended in 2021 without any lawful justification, and thereafter subjected to prolonged detention in solitary confinement.
“From 2021 until their eventual appearance before the court several years later, these young men remained in custody without being formally charged, arraigned, or afforded the constitutional safeguards guaranteed under the law.”
The lawyer questioned the legality of the prolonged detentions, saying, “One is inevitably compelled to ask: Where were these citizens during those lost years? Under what legal authority were they held?
“Why were they denied timely access to judicial processes? Why were constitutional timelines for arraignment and trial seemingly disregarded? And who bears responsibility for those years irretrievably stolen from their lives?”
He noted that prolonged detention without trial causes irreparable damage not only to detainees but also to their families and communities.
“The tragedy of prolonged detention without trial extends far beyond the prison walls. It destroys families, extinguishes careers, fractures communities, and condemns innocent relatives to years of emotional and economic anguish,” Ejiofor stated.
“Time unlawfully taken from a citizen is one commodity the State can never restore.”
Ejiofor stressed that constitutional protections remain applicable regardless of the nature of the allegations.
He said, “Section 35 guarantees personal liberty. Section 36 guarantees a fair hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial court.
“Section 36(6)(c) guarantees the right of every accused person to defend himself through legal practitioners of his choice.
“These guarantees are not suspended because an allegation bears the label ‘terrorism’. Constitutional rights do not evaporate merely because the accusation is politically convenient or publicly sensational.”
According to him, the true test of a constitutional democracy lies in how it treats vulnerable citizens and those accused of crimes.
“Indeed, the true measure of a constitutional democracy is not how it treats the popular, the powerful, or the politically connected. It is how it treats the vulnerable, the unpopular, and those standing accused,” he said.
While insisting that criminals should face lawful prosecution and punishment, Ejiofor maintained that due process must never be compromised.
He said, “The struggle, therefore, is not about shielding the guilty from lawful accountability. Those who commit crimes should be investigated, prosecuted, and punished in accordance with the law.
“The real struggle is to ensure that constitutional safeguards survive even when the State is pursuing those it suspects of wrongdoing.”
Ejiofor warned of the dangers of allowing expediency to supersede constitutional guarantees.
“For when due process becomes inconvenient, liberty becomes endangered. When constitutional guarantees become negotiable, justice becomes illusory,” he said.
“And when convictions become more important than fairness, the courtroom risks becoming a theatre where outcomes are predetermined, and rights are merely ceremonial.”
Ejiofor said he would withhold further comment until all relevant court records and materials had been reviewed.
However, he firmly noted, “One principle remains immutable and beyond dispute: The Constitution has not changed. Its supremacy remains unchallenged. Its provisions remain binding.
“And no institution, no agency, no official, and no government possesses authority greater than the Constitution itself.”
“The Constitution remains supreme, and every action inconsistent with its provisions, no matter how expedient or politically attractive, remains null, void, and constitutionally unsustainable.”