The Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, today, dismissed a suit that was brought against the federal government over the assassination of Mrs Kudirat, wife of the acclaimed winner of the 1993 presidential election, Chief MKO Abiola.
The suit, marked: ECW/CCJ/APP/62/22 was brought before the Court by three Applicants— Khalifa Abiola, Moriam Abiola and Hadi Abiola— who sued on behalf of themselves and the estate of late Mrs Abiola, whom they alleged was murdered in cold blood by some gunmen in Nigeria, reports Vanguard.
The Applicants told the court that the late Kudirat was the wife of Nigerian politician and statesman, Chief Abiola, who won the June 1993 presidential election in Nigeria but was barred from assuming office by the military junta led by General Ibrahim Babangida.
They added that Chief Abiola was instead arrested and charged with treasonable felony and imprisoned in solitary confinement, without trial.
According to the Applicants, late Kudirat led a campaign for her husband’s release but was assassinated in June 1996.
They argued that the Nigerian government’s failure to hold accountable those responsible for her assassination, including one Sergent Barnabas Jebila, as identified in the findings of a Commission of Inquiry, violated the fundamental human rights of the late Mrs Abiola as guaranteed by the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
However, the regional court, in the judgement that was delivered on Friday, dismissed the suit on the premise that the Applicants failed to adduce evidence to establish their direct relationship with late Mrs Abiola.
It held that they equally failed to present
any legal instrument that mandated them to sue as indirect victims, on behalf of Abiola’s estate.
The court held that in view of such evidence, it could not ascertain the locus standi (legal capacity) of the Applicants to file the action against the Nigerian government.
The Court also dismissed the objections of the Respondent, Federal Republic of Nigeria, challenging its competence to determine the matter which it described as beyond the scope of Article 9 of the Protocol of the Court.
It equally dismissed the Respondent’s submissions that the Applicants were requesting the Court to determine a case already decided by its national court and that the case had exceeded the time limit allowed for legal action.
Likewise, the ECOWAs court dismissed an objection that FG filed to challenge its jurisdiction to entertain the case as well as the admissibility of the matter before the Court.
In its analysis, the Court noted that the case was within its scope of competence as it pertained to alleged human rights violations by the Respondent for failing to discharge its continuing obligation to hold the perpetrators of Mrs Abiola’s murder accountable.
On FG’s contention that it was sitting on appeal over a matter that was already decided by a Nigerian court, the regional court clarified that its mandate does not involve acting as an appellate forum over national courts but rather to assess the compliance of Member States with international human rights standards.
It recalled its Ruling in a case marked: ECW/CCJ/RUL/05/24, where it stated that “the Court would only be acting as an appellate forum over national courts if it were to review or rehear national court decisions, including by interpreting or applying the national laws on which those decisions were based, and issue orders to directly reverse or vary such national court judgments.”
It held that in Abiola’s case, there was no request to rehear, review or re-examine any decision of Nigeria’s domestic courts.
However, the Court noted that the Applicants, suing on behalf of themselves and the estate of Mrs Kudirat Abiola, did not demonstrate legal capacity to sue on behalf of late Mrs Kudirat Abiola’s estate.
Consequently, it ruled that the case was inadmissible for lack of legal capacity of the Applicants to sue on behalf of themselves and late Mrs Kudirat Abiola in this matter.
The Ruling was delivered by a panel of judges comprising Hon Justice Sengu Mohamed Koroma (Presiding), Hon Justice Gberi-bè Ouattara, (Member) and Hon Justice Edward Amoako Asante (Judge Rapporteur).
