The Federal High Court in Abuja has insisted that the medical facility of the Department of State Services (DSS) is adequate for the treatment and medical services of the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu.
It ruled that Kanu does not need to be transferred to another hospital since the sickness claimed by the IPOB leader is not life-threatening.
Justice James Omotosho gave the ruling during Kanu’s appearance in court on Thursday against the IPOB leader’s continued complaints of the poor condition of the secret police’s medical facility and alleged consistent negligence of his deteriorating health in detention.
Kanu’s Special Counsel, Aloy Ejimakor, made this known through a statement released after the court proceedings on the suit that had continued to restrict the IPOB leader from addressing his followers.
He said: “Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s case has just been adjourned to 23rd October 2025 for ‘commencement of his defense’. The Judge further held that the DSS medical facility is adequate for his medical care”.
Kanu, who has been held in the custody of the DSS since June 2021, after his controversial arrest and extraordinary rendition from Kenya, has constantly raised an alarm over the poor state of the DSS’s medical facility and the alleged deliberate negligence of his deteriorating health by the agency.
Kanu, a British-Nigerian political activist and leader of IPOB, a group agitating for an independent state of Biafra from Nigeria’s South-East, was first arrested in 2015 and charged with treasonable felony, among other offences.
He was granted bail in April 2017 but fled the country after a military operation at his home in Abia State later that year.
In June 2021, he was intercepted and brought back to Nigeria under controversial circumstances widely described by his legal team as “extraordinary rendition” from Kenya.
The Nigerian Government subsequently amended the charges against him, increasing them to 15 counts, including alleged terrorism and incitement through his radio broadcasts.
Although the Court of Appeal later struck out several of the charges in October 2022, which also discharged and acquitted him of the remaining counts, the Nigerian Government appealed the ruling at the Supreme Court.
The apex court, in December 2023, set aside the appellate court’s decision, allowing the trial to resume at the Federal High Court.
Since then, Kanu’s legal team has repeatedly raised concerns over his deteriorating health, restricted access to his lawyers, and the government’s refusal to obey previous court orders granting him bail or transferring him to a more conducive detention facility.
On October 1, 2025, SaharaReporters reported that Kanu wrote to the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), alleging grave medical negligence, falsification of his health records, and intimidation of independent doctors while in the custody of the DSS.
In a letter dated September 29, 2025, and addressed to the NMA President at the association’s national secretariat in Abuja, Kanu said his health has deteriorated severely since his abduction in Kenya and subsequent detention in Nigeria.
Kanu accused DSS-appointed doctors, particularly Dr. Nasiru Mohammed, of falsifying his potassium test results and ignoring life-threatening symptoms such as fainting, chest pains, and severe light-headedness.
According to Kanu, medical examinations in Nigeria revealed a life-threatening potassium deficiency, with his levels crashing to “life-ending 1.9 mmol/L.”
He alleged that despite over 50 blood samples taken in custody, his condition has not improved under DSS-appointed doctors.
Earlier in September, Kanu’s lawyers accused the DSS of engaging in “propaganda, concealment, and medical quackery” in its handling of the IPOB leader’s worsening health condition.
The lawyers expressed “utter dismay” over media reports, which he claimed were part of the DSS’s attempt “to misinform the public and malign our client.”
“The facts are simple and indisputable: the DSS has been playing hide-and-seek with Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s health,” the lawyers said.
According to the lawyers, despite being present during medical examinations, the DSS allegedly imposed a doctor “with questionable credentials” on Kanu’s medical team.
The lawyers described one of the medical practitioners as “a quack doctor catapulted from obscurity” and “without the faintest clue of the grave dangers associated with potassium depletion in the bloodstream.”
The lawyers argued that the agency lacks the competence to manage life-threatening cardiovascular conditions such as aortic valve regurgitation and congestive heart failure.
