Timeframe: November 2025 – Present
Location: Federal High Court Abuja, DSS courtroom
annex, global livestreams
The courtroom lights are harsh, reflecting off the glass enclosure that now doubles as dock and display case. Nnamdi Kanu stands in designer knitwear, wrists bound, eyes steady. Outside, supporters hold his portrait aloft; inside, prosecutors shuffle files. In that moment, the man who once broadcast from a London basement becomes something else: a mirror. The State looks at him and sees sedition; millions see proof that the justice system can be bent to executive will.
He is thinner than the posters suggest, but he does not shrink. When the judge pronounces “life imprisonment,” he lowers his head, whispers a prayer, and then smiles—a grim, almost private smile, as if to say the prophecy has merely entered another chapter. His words, relayed through lawyers, remain defiant: “You can imprison the messenger; you cannot imprison the message.”
The glass box is meant to contain. Instead, it magnifies. Every hearing doubles as an indictment of Nigerian institutions: the refusal to obey court orders, the contradictions between local and foreign judgments, the unwillingness to investigate torture. Diplomats in distant capitals stream the footage. Some watch for cues on sanctions; others measure the temperature of a nation still debating its shape.
As the court empties, the camera lingers on the empty chair behind the glass. The man remains. The questions do, too. Will the State choose magnanimity over fear? Will the movement accept accountability alongside freedom? Will the economy recover from the weekly silences imposed in his name? The message floats above the courtroom like a stubborn hymn, unanswered but unmistakable.