You will hear from us on King and al-Mustapha very soon, says Lagos government
Anyone thinking that the Lagos Government is slow and weak at taking critical actions, should listen to this.
The government said it is not afraid of taking tough decisions on the General Overseer of Christian Praying Assembly (CPA), Chukwuemeka Ezeugo (a.k.a. King), and other condemned prisoners in the state.
It also said it had appealed the July 12, 2013, judgment of the Court of Appeal which discharged and acquitted Hamza al-Mustapha of the murder of Kudirat Abiola.
The state Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Adeniji Kazeem, disclosed this at a ministerial news conference he addressed alongside his Information and Strategy counterpart, Steve Ayorinde.
A Lagos High Court had sentenced Ezeugo to death by hanging on January 11, 2007, for the murder of his church member, Ann Uzoh. Subsequently, his death sentence was upheld by the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.
Since the Supreme Court rejected his appeal, however, the Lagos governmen has not yet signed the death warrants of Ezeugo and other condemned prisoners.
The Attorney-General said the state government was not afraid of taking tough decisions, noting that it had started reviewing the issues of condemned prisoners.
Kazeem said he had already visited prisons in the state on the instruction of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode and the state was seriously considering action on the cases of the condemned prisoners.
He said previous administrations did not sign death warrants of the convicts on the death row, noting that the governor has the prerogative whether to sign their death warrant or not.
“A lot of people are on death row. King is not the only one. It is on the instruction of Ambode that i visited the prisons recently and i discussed the issue of condemned inmates with the prison officials.
“We are moving in that direction of taking decision on the condemned prisoners. The prison officials said we need to look at it seriously. A number of them on death row have exhausted their appeals and something must be done about them. But you will hear from us very soon. I will not tell you the exact date,” he said.
On Major Al-Mustapha, Kazeem said the state government had re-opened the case, adding that the state government would definitely ensure that justice was done on the murder of Kudirat Abiola.
Al-Mustapha was allegedly fingered in the murder of the late Kudirat Abiola, but he won the case in the Court of Appeal. However, the Supreme Court had given the state government the nod to re-open the case.
Kudirat was a wife of the winner of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election, late Moshood Abiola. She was allegedly murdered by Al-Mustapha, Mohammed Abacha and Lateef Shofolahan who were on a two-count criminal charge of conspiracy and murder.
The state government urged the Supreme Court to uphold and restore the death sentence by hanging, which a Lagos High Court awarded against al-Mustapha, former Chief Security Officer (CSO) to the late Head of State, Sani Abacha, on January 30, 2012.
Comments
Be the first to comment on this post
Leave a Reply