The Lagos State High Court in Ikeja on Wednesday dismissed a suit filed by Joseph Aloba, the father of the late singer Ilerioluwa Aloba, also known as Mohbad, challenging the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP)’s legal advice, which freed Abdulazeez Fashola (alias Naira Marley) and two others over their alleged involvement in his son’s death.
Justice Taiwo Olatokun, while ruling on the application seeking a judicial review of the processes that led to the release of the advice, held that the state’s Attorney General’s discretion on whether to prosecute the suspects was validly exercised.
Justice Olatokun also held that the powers of the Attorney General, acting through the DPP, cannot be challenged, and therefore, the reliefs sought by Mohbad’s father could not be granted.
The applicant had asked the court to order a judicial review to quash the DPP’s legal advice and Magistrate Ejiro Kubenje’s order, which discharged and acquitted four suspects, Marley, Samason Balogun Eletu (A.K.A. Sam Larry), Owoduni Ibrahim (A.K.A. Prime Boy), and Pere Babatunde, and declared it unlawful.
In the application before the court, late Mohbad’s father cited a lack of a fair hearing as one of the grounds for the application.
He also argued that the DPP’s legal advice freeing the duo of Naira Marley and Sam Larry pre-empted the proceedings of the Coroner’s inquest, which is yet to conclude its enquiry and sittings into the cause of death of the late Mohbad.
Aloba stated that the act of the Lagos State Attorney General and the DPP clearing the suspects is without due regard to the Coroner’s Court and constitutes an obstruction of the Coroner in the exercise of its statutory duties.
He also argued that failing to allow the Coroner to conclude its proceeding and going ahead to issue the legal advice pre-empted the outcome of the coroner’s decision; it was, therefore, done without jurisdiction and is null and void.
However, in its counter-affidavit, the Lagos DPP maintained that, contrary to Mr Aloba’s claims, the suspects released by the court were not acquitted but merely discharged.
The respondents had therefore urged the court to dismiss the application in the interest of justice, arguing that there was no evidence linking the freed suspects directly or indirectly to Mohbad’s death, which formed the basis of the DPP’s decision to release them.
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