Kudirat’s Blood Will Cry For Justice

Nigerians have continued to express outrage over the recent Appeal Court judgement which discharged and acquitted Major Hamza Al-Mustapha and Lateef Shofolahan, two people accused of masterminding the June 4, 1996 assassination of Mrs. Kudirat Abiola, wife of Chief MKO Abiola, winner of the 12 June, 1993 presidential election, because the judgement calls to question the manner the nation’s criminal justice system operates. This is the worst kind of miscarriage of justice.

The verdict delivered by Justice Amina A. Augie who presided over the appeal, as well as Justice Rita N. Pemu, and Justice Fatima O. Akinbami, on Friday, 12 July, 2013, has stirred the hornet’s nest because justice has not been seen in many quarters to have been served.  The Court of Appeal hinged its decision to free Al-Mustapha and Shofolahan, the late Kudirat’s aide, on what it perceived as the contradictions in the testimony of the prosecution witnesses, the non-corroboration of their testimonies, being co-accomplices; the non-adducing of medical evidence (including failure to tender autopsy and ballistic report), the non-investigation of the crime by the Nigeria Police Force, which it argued, has the sole power to investigate the crime, instead of the hybrid Special Investigation Panel (SIP) and the non appearance of the police in court to give evidence.

It is shocking that after a lower court relied on the evidence given by Barnabas Jabila ( a.k.a. Sergeant Rogers) and Muhammed Abdul (a.k.a. Katako) that they were directed to murder Alhaja Kudirat Abiola by Major Hamza Al-Mustapha; that they were given information on her movements by Alhaji Lateef Shofolahan; and that they shot and killed Alhaji Kudirat Abiola and drove the Peugeot 504 car which they used in trailing her car and bolting away, and duly convicted the principal suspects, the Court of Appeal went ahead to free Al-Mustapha.

We join other right thinking Nigerians and legal experts who have condemned the judgement in the strongest terms and unequivocally denounce the criminal justice system in Nigeria that allows highly placed convicted criminals go scot free while punishing the common people that cannot pull any strings to influence their fate while they are before the law courts. What this means is that Nigerians are not equal before the law.

As other commentators have rightly pointed out, now that the Appeal Court has freed Al-Mustapha, the late tyrant, Sani Abacha, under whom Al-Mustapha served as Chief Security Officer, could be described as a saint. We believe that the danger in this kind of warped judgement is that it is a harbinger of evil. It will encourage those in high places who perpetrate evil to carry on with their atrocities knowing full well that they won’t be made to account for them even in the court of law.

Following this Court of Appeal verdict, Nigerians are beginning to come to terms with why no one has been found guilty of any of the litany of high profile assassinations in this country, especially during the reign of terror unleashed on Nigerians by Abacha, Al-Mustapha’s principal in Aso Rock, between 17 November 1993 and 8 June, 1998 when the dictator held court.

We agree with Professor Itse Sagay, a constitutional lawyer, that the principle must be established in this country that anybody who infringes on a person’s right, particularly the right to life, must pay fully for it under the law. We insist that the quest of every Nigerian for justice should not be defined by influence and power but by equality before the law.

We urge the Lagos State Government, through the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Ade Ipaye, to take the matter to the Supreme Court with a view to upturning this obnoxious judgement that has put the judiciary again in the dock of public opinion. The blood of Kudirat will continue to cry for justice until those who murdered her get the punishment they deserve.