Former lead counsel to Nnamdi Kanu, Ifeanyi Ejiofor, has accused the IPOB leader’s current legal team of abandoning strategy in favour of social-media theatrics, saying their actions contributed significantly to his conviction.

Kanu was sentenced to life imprisonment by a federal high court in Abuja on Thursday. Reacting in a statement on Saturday, Ejiofor said he felt compelled to speak after receiving overwhelming calls from supporters worried about the direction of the case.

He said that between 2015 and 2023, his team—later led by senior advocate Mike Ozekhome—secured major victories, including the landmark 2022 Court of Appeal judgment that discharged and acquitted Kanu. According to him, progress stalled when Kanu allegedly began sharing sensitive information with individuals he described as “clueless clowns”, who convinced him to dismantle the existing defence structure.

Ejiofor said this shift sidelined respected legal minds such as Kanu Agabi and Onyechi Ikpeazu, allowing inexperienced figures to “hijack” the case.

“What followed,” he said, “was the conversion of an internationally sensitive trial into a spectacle. Sessions became opportunities for posing, filming and chasing online virality. They mastered camera angles but ignored case law, while Kanu’s future hung in the balance.”

He said the team’s public misinformation routinely contradicted what transpired in court, giving the prosecution unnecessary advantages and leading to what he described as an “entirely avoidable outcome”.

Ejiofor called for an urgent overhaul of the defence, insisting that credible international lawyers can only step in after a thorough “cleanup” of the “monumental damage” already done.

His criticism comes a day after Uchechi Okwu-Kanu, wife of the IPOB leader, publicly condemned the legal consultants for failing to inform her about his transfer to Sokoto prison. Earlier, lawyer Aloy Ejimakor had announced that Kanu had been relocated to a correctional centre in the state following his conviction.