CENTRE FOR RIGHTS AND GRASSROOTS INITIATIVE (CRGI)

                                                            1a Fadeyi Street, Ikeja, Lagos.

Email: centreforrightsgi@gmail.com

                                                            Telephone: 08078012999, 07033853232

13/07/2013.

PRESS STATEMENT

THE APPEAL COURT JUDGEMENT ON MAJOR HAMZA AL MUSTAPHA AS A SETBACK FOR JUSTICE AND DEMOCRACY

Major Hamza Al Mustapha

The Centre for Rights and Grassroots Initiative (CRGI) is shocked and disappointed in the Appeal Court judgement of Friday 11^th July 2013 which set aside the Lagos high court death conviction on Major Hamza Al Mustapha and his accomplice Lateef Shofolahan for their roles in the murder of Alhaja Kudirat Abiola, wife of late President Elect, Bashorun MKO Abiola.

We regard this judgement as a setback for our democracy and justice which is a critical ingredient for peace, progress and prosperity but which our society is lacking and is responsible for most of the ills bedeviling it. The only crime which late Alhaja Kudirat Abiola committed and for which she was brutally murdered was that she like millions of her countrymen insisted on the revalidation of the June 12 1993 democratic mandate of over 14 million Nigerians entrusted in her husband, Late Chief MKO Abiola who also paid the supreme price and nothing more.

As responsible democrats who believe in the rule of law, we want to admonish the judiciary to be circumspect in its activities lest it send a wrong signal to the society that it is legitimate to use state power to commit murder.

In the meantime, we want to sincerely thank the prosecution for their enduring sacrifices made in the course of this trial of which there is still an hurdle to cross despite the futile antics of the defendants to thwart and ambush justice at the high court.

To the media, we say a big thank you for faithfully and patriotically discharging its constitutional mandate with utmost responsibility on this matter, together we shall get justice.

We also want to thank and enjoin the Lagos State government that it owes the society and posterity, the moral and constitutional responsibility of pursuing this case to a logical conclusion by immediately requesting for copies of the judgement in order to file an appeal at the Supreme Court in line with its responsibility as a responsible government which believes in the rule of law and sanctity of human life.