Lekan Abiola, has expressed
disappointment over Friday's Appeal
Court judgment, which upturned the
death sentence earlier passed on Major
Hamza Al-Mustapha and Lateef
Shofolahan, who were accused of
masterminding the killing of his
mother.
The Court of Appeal sitting in Lagos
had earlier on Friday discharged and
acquitted the former Chief Security
Officer to the late Gen. Sani Abacha
(Al-Mustapha) and Shofolahan, an ex-
aide to the late Kudirat.
The appellate court had dismissed the
judgment of Justice Mojisola Dada of
the Lagos High Court, which sentenced
both men to death by hanging, after
accusing the judge of being "stroked to
secure a conviction by all means."
But the younger Abiola told Saturday
PUNCH on Friday that he was
"disappointed, but not particularly
surprised by the judgement."
"I pray that God will forgive my mother
and I know that my mum and dad will
definitely get justice; maybe not in
Nigeria, but I'm sure that Allah will
give them justice where they are."
He said, "The Appeal Court only
completed the work of other courts
before it that have played roles in
scuttling the family's quest for justice
in this matter. They finished the job,
but they weren't the ones who started
it.
"We had seven or so defendants
before now with confessions of the
roles they played in the death of my
mother; there was Mohammed
Abacha, Banabas Jabila aka Sgt. Rogers,
James Danbaba, Lateef Shofolahan,
Rabo Lawal and others. Everybody said
the role they played; the one who did
the shooting; the one who drove; the
one who arranged for the car that was
used when they got to Lagos from
Abuja; the people in the room when
the order to kill my mother was given.
All the seven started the case, but the
Supreme Court started the whole thing
when it said that Mohammed Abacha
had no case to answer."
According to him, the Abiola family
would still have been disappointed
even if the death sentence had been
upheld by the Appeal Court.
He said, "One after the other, the
cases were dropped and it was down
to the remaining two. Where are the
others? The fact that only two of them
were convicted shows the rot in the
judicial system. Even if the court had
upheld the death sentence, we still
wouldn't have got the justice we
sought. Already, most of those
involved had been freed."
Reacting to the assertion that military
officers cannot be liable for crimes
committed while carrying out orders
from a superior officer, Abiola said
military law also recognised illegality
and had made provisions for such
scenarios.
He argued that junior military officers
get punished abroad for criminal
offences carried out under direct order
from a superior boss.
He said, "It has been proven that even
in the military, you are not bound by
law to obey an illegal order. If a human
being asks you to do something, you
have to ask yourself if it's a legal order.
"After the World War II, German
officials involved in war crimes, who
claimed to be following orders before
an international tribunal in Nuremberg,
were found guilty and hanged."
Abiola also expressed concern about
the general situation in the country,
saying that many Nigerians would be
silently facing a fate similar to that
being faced by his family.
He said, "Only God knows how many
Nigerian family members have been
killed by the police or the army and
could not get justice. If something like
that can happen to my family, what
about other families that people don't
know anything about?
He, however, said that the Abiola
family had accepted the judgment in
good fate as Muslims, adding that some
credits should go the "high court judge
that passed the initial (death) sentence
on Al-Mustapha and Shofolahan."
Also, a younger brother to the late
MKO Abiola, Alhaji Mubashiru Abiola,
told one of our correspondents that
the judgement came to the Abiola
family as a "big surprise."
Although he declined further comment
on the judgment, Mubashiru said the
family would issue a statement on the
issue after a meeting of all members.
Similarly, Kudirat's daughter, Hafsat
Abiola-Costello, in a text message to
one of our correspondents on Friday,
said the family would not want to make
any hasty comment on the appellate
court's decision.
Her text message read, "Hello, the
family will release a statement in the
next few days. Thanks."
The judgment of the appellate court
came about 14 years after the
appellants were first arraigned in 1999,
with two others, for the murder of
Kudurat, wife of the winner of the June
12, 1993 presidential election, Chief
MKO Abiola.
In the two separate but unanimous
judgments delivered on Friday, the
Justice Amina Augie-led appeal panel
discharged and acquitted al-Mustapha
and Shofolahan of the murder charges
for lack of evidence.
Lack of evidence was the same reason
the Supreme Court discharged and
acquitted son of the late Head of State,
Mohammed Abacha, from the same
case on July 11, 2002.
The fourth person, Rabo Lawal, who
was, during Abacha's regime, the head
of Mobile Police Force Unit in Aso Rock,
was also discharged and acquitted from
the case on July 14, 2011, by Justice
Dada in her ruling on a no-case
submission, which he (Lawal) filed after
the prosecution closed its case.
The all-female appeal panel held that
both the charges of murder and
conspiracy to murder preferred against
the two men by the Lagos State
Government were unsubstantiated.
The two other justices on the panel
were Rita Pemu, who read the lead
judgment, and Fatima Augie.
Pemu described the lower court's
judgment as "worrisome," adding that
it was based on principles strange to
the nation's criminal justice system.
"The evidence of the prosecution was
so unreliable that no responsible court
will base the conviction of an accused
person on," she said.
She held that the two star witnesses of
the prosecution (PW2 -Barnabas Jabila
aka Sgt. Rogers and PW3, Mohammed
Abdul aka Katako), having recanted
their incriminating testimonies, the
evidence given by them could no
longer be relied upon.
"I wonder why the learned trial judge
did not expunge the testimonies of
PW2 and PW3," Pemu said.
She said despite the evidence given by
Jabila and Abdul, testifying that they
were instructed to tell lies against the
appellants, "the learned trial judge
refused to concern her mind with the
politics of the case. She allowed herself
to be caught in the web of the
conflict."
Augie said in her supporting judgment,
"The 326 pages cannot provide
judgment where there is none."
She said the judgment ought not to be
too long "if the case of the prosecution
was strong."
According to Augie, the judgment being
too long, the learned trial judge
"strayed" into emotion and left the
content of the matter while dwelling
on the "shallow issues."
She also wondered why the authorities
"refused to prosecute Barnabas Jabila,
who made a confession to have killed a
person."
On the testimony of the first
prosecution witness, Dr. Ore Falomo,
who was MKO Abiola's personal
physician, Pemu said the evidence
given by him was immaterial, having
only alleged that the bullet extracted
from the head of the deceased was
"uncommon one," without any further
proof.
Pemu said the bullet was never
brought to court and that no ballistician
report was tendered to corroborate
Falomo's claim that the bullet must
have come from the Presidency and
that Kudirat must have been killed by
"a fifth columnist in government."
"These questions are left unanswered
by the prosecution," Pemu said.
She said the incomplete testimony of
the fourth prosecution witness (PW4),
Ahmed Fari Yusuf, a retired
Commissioner of Police, "goes to no
issue" and as such, all the statements
credited to the appellants, which were
tendered through him, were all
immaterial.
She said failure of the prosecution to
present Yusuf for the defence to cross-
examine after two trials-within-trial for
13 months to test the voluntariness of
the statements "was an infraction to
the rights of the appellants to fair
hearing."
As such, the court held that the three
statements tendered as Exhibits A5,
B1 and A6 had no "evidential value."
The appellate court held that even if
the appellants had actually committed
the alleged crimes, nothing in the
testimonies of all the four prosecution
witnesses suggested so.
The court castigated the police for a
"wishy-washy" investigation of the
case, adding that the investigation of
the Special Investigative Panel, set up
on the case in 1999, was strange to
the nation's criminal justice system.
Pemu said, "PW2 and PW3 said that
they were coerced to testify against
the appellants and the incompleteness
of the evidence of PW4 – all these
leave so much to be desired."
According to Pemu, the investigation
conducted by the SIP on the case was
a usurpation of the power of the police
under sections 214 of the constitution
as well as under the provisions of the
Police Act.
She said, "The prosecution having failed
to prove its case against the
appellants, the appellants are entitled
to being discharged and acquitted.
"Therefore the judgment of Justice
Mojisola Dada of the Lagos High Court
on January 30, 2012 is hereby set
aside.
"The conviction and the sentence to
death by hanging passed on Maj.
Hamza Mustapha and Lateef
Shofolahan for the murder of Alhaja
Kudirat Abiola on June 4, 1996, is
hereby set aside, and they are hereby
discharged and acquitted."
Shofolahan's counsel, Mr. Olalekan Ojo,
who led the defence team for both
appellants at the lower court, said al-
Mustapha and Shofolahan were victims
of "a perverse judgment; luckless
victims of politics of the South-West
and luckless victims of politics at the
top."
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