Kudirat Abiola: Major Al-Mustapha, Lagos Govt. Returns To Court

Barely four years after Appeal Court  discharge and acquitted former Chief Security Officer to late General Sani Abacha, Major Hamza Al-Mustapha (rtd),  Lagos State Government has secured an order of the Supreme Court permitting it to re-open the murder case of late Alhaja Kudirat Abiola against Al-Mustapha.

Late Kudirat Abiola wife of the late business tycoon cum politician, Chief M.K.O. Abiola was assassinated in June 1996 whilst her husband, Moshood Abiola was being detained by the Nigerian Government..

The apex court in a brief ruling on the application by Lagos State for permission to re-open the case out of time, granted the request to challenge the Court of Appeal decision of July 12, 2013 that discharged and acquitted Al-Mustapha from the murder case.

The Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Samuel Nkanu Onnoghen, in the ruling of a panel of seven Justices, ordered Lagos State to file its notice of appeal within 30 days.

The decision of Justice Onnoghen on the Lagos State application argued by Osunsanya Oluwayemisi, a Senior State Counsel in the Lagos Ministry of Justice, followed the consent of Al-Mustapha’s lawyer, Joseph Daudu, not to oppose the application.

The acting CJN said that by the decision of the apex court, the time for Lagos State to appeal against the findings of the Court of Appeal on the celebrated murder case has been extended from July 12, 2013 when the appeal court judgment was delivered till Thursday.

Al-Mustapha, Mohammed Abacha and Lateef Shofolahan were arraigned before a Lagos State High Court on two-count criminal charge of conspiracy to commit murder and the murder of Alhaja Abiola on June 4, 1996 in Lagos State.

In the judgment of the High Court delivered on January 30, 2012 by Justice Moji Dada, the accused persons were found culpable as charged and sentenced to death by hanging.

However at the Court of Appeal approached by Al-Mustapha on April 27, 2012 for the review of the trial and the conviction, the three-member appellate court in a unanimous judgment of July 12, 2013 voided the decision of the High Court, set it aside and discharged and acquitted the accused on the ground that the evidence against them was not strong enough to warrant the death sentence.