A review of the United Nations working group's opinion on Nnamdi Kanu's arbitrary deprivation of liberty

Human rights laws have played a significant role in protecting the human rights of extradites wanted by a requesting state to face criminal charges. However, states in their zeal to secure the presence of these individuals within their territory in order to try them under their domestic laws, tend to circumvent international extradition norms and processes, thereby placing these individuals beyond the law’s protection. Nigeria is no exception: for example, in the case of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of a group campaigning for the independent Republic of Biafra in Nigeria’s South-Eastern region, who was allegedly forcefully abducted and detained in Kenya before his extraordinary extradition to Nigeria. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD is established to ensure personal liberty of persons who have been arbitrarily deprived in such circumstance. This article adopts the doctrinal methodology to examine the legal issues raised in the WGAD’s opinion which determines whether Kanu’s liberty was arbitrarily deprived by the Kenyan and Nigerian Governments