Supreme Court has dismissed a suit that sought a retrial of Hamza Al-Mustapha, former chief security officer to the late military ruler, Sani Abacha, over the 1996 murder of Kudirat Abiola, wife of the late business mogul and politician, Moshood Abiola.
Gatekeepers News reports that Kudirat was assassinated on June 4, 1996, in Lagos, in what human rights groups described as a politically motivated killing during the Abacha military regime.
Al-Mustapha and Lateef Shofolahan, an aide of Kudirat, were initially charged by the Lagos state government with conspiracy to commit murder and the murder of Kudirat Abiola.
On January 30, 2012, they were sentenced to death by Mojisola Dada, judge of the Federal High Court in Lagos. Both men appealed the judgment and were acquitted on July 12, 2013, by the Lagos division of the Court of Appeal, citing insufficient evidence.
In 2017, a five-member panel of justices led by former Chief Justice Walter Onnoghen granted Lagos state additional time to file an appeal despite the statutory deadline having passed, ordering the government to submit its notice of appeal within 30 days.
At Thursday’s Supreme Court session, Paul Daudu, counsel to Al-Mustapha, informed the court that Lagos state had not taken any action to comply with the order, including failing to file the required notice of appeal even after nine years. He urged the court to hold that the state had effectively abandoned the case.
After reviewing the matter, a five-member panel led by Justice Uwani Aba-Aji found that Lagos state had been served a hearing notice but was not represented in court.
The justices noted that nearly a decade had passed without any correspondence or explanation from the state, showing a clear lack of interest in pursuing the case. The apex court concluded that nine years was ample time for the appellant to act and dismissed the suit entirely. The case, registered as SC/CR/45/2014, is now closed.
The ruling ends one of Nigeria’s longest-running posthumous legal attempts to hold anyone accountable for Kudirat Abiola’s assassination, a case that has drawn attention from local and international human rights organisations, who have long called for justice in politically motivated killings during the Abacha era.
