Al-Mustapha: What the Supreme Court said – JB Daudu SAN

Major Al-Mustapha (rtd ) was convicted of the murder of Mrs. Kudirat Abiola by the High Court of Lagos State per Justice M.A. Dada on the 30th of January 2012 and sentenced to die by hanging.

He appealed to the Lagos Division of the Court of Appeal and after complying with the procedures of appeal, he was heard and judgment was delivered by the Appeal Court setting aside the conviction and reversing the sentence of death by hanging.

Lagos State Government (LASG) initially, appeared satisfied with the judgment of the Court of Appeal but after due political consideration it decided to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Because LASG was out of time within which to appeal, not having lodged its notice of Appeal within 30 days as prescribed by law, it brought an application sometime in March 2014, for (a) extension of time within which to apply for leave to appeal against the judgment of the Court of Appeal, (b) leave to appeal therefrom and (c) extension of time to file Notice of Appeal. LASG dragged its feet on the application and failed to get it listed until our client (Al- Mustapha) requested that we i.e his counsel petition the CJN for a determination of that application for leave to appeal. This we did and the Supreme Court (SC) eventually fixed the 12th of January 2017 for hearing of the LASG application as described.

On the adjourned day, 12 January 2017, LASG’s lawyer moved his application for leave to appeal and not being opposed by JB Daudu SAN, was granted by the SC presided by Onnoghen Ag. CJN and the applicant, LASG, was directed to file their Notice of Appeal within 30 days of the date of the grant of the application.

According to JB Daudu, it was a matter of common knowledge that there was no appeal pending in the SC unless and until a Notice of Appeal was filed by the wouldbe appellant i.e LASG.

“That is why our client was most disturbed by the false, malicious and disparaging reports of the proceedings in the SC described above. The reportage by the media amount to blatant falsehood calculated to implant in the minds of the public, information that our client is guilty of the murder of Alhaja Kudirat Abiola and has been so adjudged by the SC.

“It is simply not true that the appeal was heard and determined by the SC, neither is it correct that his discharge and acquittal by the Court of Appeal has in any way been disturbed by the apex court or any other court nor the freedom of our client abridged. It is obvious that the picture all these media houses have painted of our client is one of guilt in the murder of Kudirat Abiola.

“It also amounts to a deliberate act of sensationalizing information designed to mislead the public and tarnish the good name of our client. As things stand, there is no appeal pending in the SC by LASG or any other person or agency and our client enjoys a judgment that is valid until set aside in the very unlikely event that in future the judgment of the court below is interfered with,” JB Daudu said.