Kudirat Abiola: Lagos under fire over botched murder case

Kudirat Abiola

Family, senior advocates and civil society organisations have lashed out at the Lagos State Government over the closure of the murder case of Alhaja Kudirat Abiola by the Supreme Court, after it was established that the state abandoned its appeal against the acquittal of Maj Hamza Al-Mustapha (retd.) for nine years.

The apex court, in a unanimous judgment delivered by a five-man panel on Thursday, ruled that the state government failed to take any legal steps to prosecute its appeal within the period granted to it, thereby effectively abandoning the case.

The ruling sparked national outrage over the unresolved assassination of the wife of the winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, the late Chief MKO Abiola.

Kudirat was assassinated in Lagos on June 4, 1996, at the height of nationwide protests against the annulment of the June 12 election by the regime of the late Gen Sani Abacha.

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Her killing became one of the most symbolic tragedies of the pro-democracy struggle, representing the extreme measures deployed to silence opposition voices during military rule.

Al-Mustapha, the former Chief Security Officer to Abacha, alongside Mohammed Abacha and Lateef Shofolahan, was arraigned for conspiracy and murder.

On January 30, 2012, a Lagos High Court sentenced the trio to death by hanging.

However, the Court of Appeal, on July 12, 2013, overturned the conviction, citing weak and unreliable evidence, and discharged and acquitted the accused.

Unwilling to accept the verdict at the time, the Lagos State Government approached the Supreme Court in 2014 and was granted leave to appeal out of time.

A seven-man panel led by the then acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen, ordered the state to file its notice of appeal within 30 days, following its claim that it needed time to review the case and challenge the appellate court’s findings.