After Lagos State neglected to pursue the case for over ten years, the Supreme Court dismissed the trial of Major Hamza Al-Mustapha (rtd), the former Chief Security Officer to the late military ruler General Sani Abacha, regarding the m8√der of Alhaja Kudirat Abiola.
The late businessman and politician Chief MKO Abiola’s wife, Alhaja Kudirat Abiola, was k.!lled in Lagos during the political turmoil that ensued after the June 12, 1993 presidential election was declared void. She had been fighting the military government’s annulment for a long time when she was k!.lled.
After observing that Lagos State had not taken any action to reopen the trial since obtaining permission to do so in 2014, a five-member Supreme Court panel led by Justice Uwani Aba-Aji concluded the protracted case.
Lagos State had not filed any procedures and was not present at the hearing. Al-Mustapha’s attorney, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, informed the court that more than 11 years had gone by without the state filing a notice of appeal or taking any action within the 30-day window allotted in 2014.
The court unanimously decided that Lagos State had obviously given up on the case after verifying that the state had been properly served with hearing notices. According to Justice Aba-Aji, the extended inaction demonstrated a lack of interest and the delay was unacceptable.
The court dismissed the appeal marked SC/CR/45/2014. A related appeal by the Lagos State government, marked SC/CR/6/2014, was also dismissed on the same grounds.
In 2014, the Supreme Court had granted Lagos State permission to challenge a Court of Appeal judgment delivered in 2013, which discharged and acquitted Al-Mustapha of the murder charge. The apex court had ordered the state to file its notice of appeal within 30 days, extending the time to appeal to early 2014.
Al-Mustapha, alongside Mohammed Abacha and Lateef Shofolahan, had earlier been convicted and sentenced to death by a Lagos High Court in 2012 for conspiracy and murder. That conviction was overturned in 2013 by the Court of Appeal, which ruled that the evidence was insufficient to sustain the verdict.
With the Supreme Court’s decision, the matter has now been finally laid to rest, bringing an end to one of Nigeria’s most high-profile cr!minal cases.