The Lagos High Court sitting in Ikeja has refused to grant the application by Joseph Aloba, the father of late Mohbad, seeking permission to quash the DPP’s legal advice and the subsequent court proceedings which freed Naira Marley and Sam Larry on allegations of being involved in Mohbad’s death.
Justice Taiwo Olatokun, in her judgment on Wednesday, held that the powers of the Attorney General on whether to prosecute or not were validly exercised.
Justice Olatokun also held that the powers of the Attorney General (acting through the DPP) could not be questioned, and as such, the reliefs sought by the late Mohbad’s father could not be granted.
The court, therefore, dismissed the application.
While the counsel from the DPP’s office declined to comment on the judgment, the applicant’s counsel, Wahab Shittu, SAN, said his client was ready to test the judgment on appeal.
Background
The applicant, Joseph Aloba, is suing for and on behalf of the Aloba family while the Attorney General of Lagos State and the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) are listed as the respondents.
The applicant, through his lawyer, Shittu, cited a lack of fair hearing as one of the grounds for the application.
In his application, Aloba had said 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 has yet to conclude its enquiry into the cause of death of the late Mohbad.
He noted that vital suspects mentioned and implicated in the Coroner’s proceeding had been freed by the DPP’s legal advice.
In their counter affidavit, filed on June 24, a legal assistant in the office of the DPP, Ayinde Ibrahim, deposed that contrary to the submission of Mohbad’s father, the suspects who were released by the legal advice were not acquitted but were only discharged.
While asking the court to dismiss Mohbad’s application in the interest of justice, the respondents traced the process of obtaining the DPP’s legal advice, the role of the DPP, the kind of information-notably the criminal case file-which the DPP and neither the Coroner nor the applicant had access to and concluded that there was no fact disclosed which linked Naira Marley, Sam Larry Prima Boy and Opere Babatunde directly or remotely to the death Mohbad, a situation which formed the basis of the DPP’s advice freeing them.
