Justice Musa Liman of the Federal High Court Abuja has declined hearing of a motion filed by the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, seeking an order to transfer him from the custody of the Department of State Services (DSS) to the National Hospital, Abuja, for urgent medical attention.
 
The Judge declined to hear the motion on the ground that his fiat to sit as a vacation Judge had ended and therefore lacked jurisdiction to open such a new matter for hearing.
 
Justice Liman, instead, ordered that the case file be returned to the registry for the Chief Judge to reassign it to another judge. At yesterday’s proceedings, Asiwaju Adegboyega Awomolo appeared for the Federal Government while Uchenna Njoku stood for Kanu. 
 
When the matter was called, Kanu’s lawyer informed the Judge that the motion by Kanu was filed on September 1, while a counter affidavit of 37 paragraphs opposing the transfer request was served on him by the government in the open court. 
 
The senior lawyer said that he had not read the counter-affidavit to respond.  He, therefore, applied for an adjournment to enable him to respond to the counter affidavit, because the vacation of the Judge had come to an end. 
 
On his part, Awomolo did not oppose the adjournment request, noting that he is ready to be in court any time.  Justice Liman assured that he would make a recommendation to the Chief Judge for a speedy hearing of the motion since the health of the applicant is involved. 
 
Kanu had, in the motion with charge number: FHC/ABJ/CR/383/2015, sought an order of the court for the DSS to move him from DSS custody to the National Hospital for urgent medical care.