The Court of Appeal sitting in Lagos has discharged and acquitted Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, the man accused of the killing of Alhaja Kudirat Abiola, wife of acclaimed winner of the June 12, 1993 election, Chief MKO Abiola.
Al-Mustapha, a former chief security officer to late dictator Sani Abacha had been in detention since his arrest 14 years ago and had been facing trial.
He was found guilty and sentenced to death on January 30, 2013 for conspiracy and murder of Alhaja Kudirat Abiola by a Lagos High Court, which also sentenced Alhaji Lateef Shofolahan, an aide to the late Chief Abiola, to death by hanging for the role he played in the woman’s death.
After Abacha’s death in June 1998, Al-Mustapha was quickly dismissed from his job by the transitional regime established by General Abdulsalam Abubakar.
In October that year, he appeared in court with Abacha’s son, Mohammed, charged with the June 1996 murder of Kudirat Abiola, whose husband and presidential candidate M.K.O. Abiola died in jail in July 1998. At the trial the killer, Sergeant Barnabas Jabila, better known as Sergeant Rogers, claimed he was obeying orders from his superior, al-Mustapha.
Al-Mustapha and four others were also charged with a 1996 attempt to murder Alex Ibru, publisher of The Guardian and Abacha’s Minister of Internal Affairs. Another charge laid against al-Mustapha was that of the attempted murder of former naval chief, Isaac Porbeni.
While the trials proceeded, Al-Mustapha was detained at the Kirikiri Maximum Security Prisons. While imprisoned, on April 1, 2004, he was charged with being involved in a plot to overthrow the government.
Allegedly, he had conspired with others to shoot down the helicopter conveying President Olusegun Obasanjo using a surface-to-air missile that had been smuggled into the country from Benin.
In 2007, there were appeals for al Mustapha’s release by four newspapers and by former Head of State, Ibrahim Babangida.
Eventually, after 12 years of imprisonment, trials and retrials, Al-Mustapha and his co-defendants were acquitted of most charges on 21 December 2010.
The co-defendants were former Lagos State Police Commissioner, James Danbaba; former Zamfara State Military Administrator, Jibril Bala Yakubu; and former Head of the Aso Rock Anti-Riot Police, Rabo Lawal.
However, Al-Mustapha was still not cleared of the alleged murder of Kudirat Abiola, for which he was being tried separately.
In May 2011, there were rumours of Al-Mustapha’s murder at the Kirikiri Maximum Security Prisons, where he was being held but these turned out to be untrue. Later that month, a judge set 31st May 2011 as the date for deciding whether to reopen the trial against Al-Mustapha.
The case was reopened in July 2011. In the first two weeks of August, Hamza Al-Mustapha and co-accused Lateef Sofolahan testified to their innocence of Abiola’s killing. The court adjourned the case to 10th November 2011 when counsels to both parties were expected to file and adopt their written addresses.
After receiving written submissions and hearing the addresses by the counsel to both parties on that date, Justice Mojisola Dada fixed 30th January 2012 for delivering a judgement.
The court subsequently found him guilty of the murder and he was sentenced to death by hanging, a judgement that has now been overturned by the Appeal Court.
Reacting to the judgement, human rights activist Fred Agbaje concurred with the Appeal Court, saying there were too many loopholes in the evidence against the accused for the defence counsel not to take advantage of them.
“It is good for the development of the rule of law in this country,” he said. “The innocent shall not be unjustly punished. I hope the matter will now rest, unless the Lagos State Government wants to pursue an appeal.”
In his own analysis, Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Ikeja Branch Onyekachi Ubani observed that the Appeal Court reserves the rights to review the decision of a lower court. However, he admitted that he did not have enough details on the exact reasons why the death sentence was overturned.
“It could be that they found out that the lower court erred either on the side of law or on the application of fact,” he said. “However, the government may appeal to the Supreme Court. So for now, it is a temporary relief for Al-Mustapha.”
Also reacting, Professor Itse Sagay (SAN) urged the Judiciary to help the country set the pace that “anybody who infringes on a person’s right, particularly the right to life, must pay fully for it under the law.”
