Timeframe: 2025
Location: Abuja, Owerri, Onitsha
Key Actors: Amnesty International, Nigerian Bar
Association (NBA) Human Rights Committee, DSS forensic unit
Epigraph:
“Not a single firearm, cartridge, or forensic report links the
accused to the alleged killings.”
— Amnesty International briefing, December 2025 [1].
The Camera Lens
After the verdict, human-rights researchers sifted through the judgment searching for hard evidence: ballistics, chain-of-custody forms, autopsy results. They found none. The voluminous ruling cited speeches, intercepted broadcasts, and witness statements, but no laboratory reports. For a case hinging on allegations of mass murder, the absence of forensics was deafening.
Amnesty International’s “Decade of Impunity” review noted that the prosecution produced no ballistic analysis linking recovered weapons to ESN or to Kanu [1]. The NBA’s human-rights committee observed that even the laptops and transmitters seized were not subjected to independent verification [2]. The case relied entirely on security-service narratives.
Legal scholars questioned whether radio speeches can constitute actus reus for murders committed hundreds of miles away [2]. Without proof of direct operational control, the judgment effectively criminalized rhetoric. Critics warn that such precedent threatens journalists and activists who comment on unrest.
The missing forensics highlight a justice system comfortable convicting on narrative alone. In the absence of physical proof, the idea of Kanu became more powerful than evidence about him.