Justice Taiwo Olatokun of the Lagos High Court sitting in Ikeja has dismissed the application brought by the father of late singer, Ilerioluwa Aloba, aka Mohbad, who was seeking to quash the legal advice and court proceedings that freed music label owner, Naira Marley and promoter, Sam Larry from any involvement in Mohbad’s death.
In her judgment on Wednesday, justice olatokun said The Powers of the attorney general of Lagos state to prosecute or not to prosecute are absolute and cannot be questioned.
Responding after the judgment, counsel for the Aloba family, wahab Shittu SAN told journalists that the family will be proceeding to appeal the decision, as their aim is not to indict anyone but is in the interest of justice.
Mohbad’s father, Joseph Aloba, brought the application through his lead counsel, on behalf of the family, while the Attorney General of Lagos State and the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) are listed as the respondents.
Dr Shittu had cited a lack of fair hearing as one of the grounds for the application.
In his application, Mr Aloba said the DPP’s legal advice freeing Naira Marley and Sam Larry pre-empted the proceedings of the Coroner’s inquest which is yet to conclude its inquiry into the cause of Mohbad’s death.
He noted that vital suspects mentioned and implicated in the Coroner’s proceeding have been freed by the DPP’s legal advice.
But In the counter affidavit of the respondents,, they contended that the suspects who were released by the Legal Advice, were not acquitted but were merely discharged.
While asking the court to dismiss Mr Mohbad’s application in the interest of justice, the respondents added that at no time did the Presiding Coroner hearing the inquest issue any directive that mandated the respondents to inform it of the conclusion of the DPP’s review of the duplicate case file which is the conclusion captured in the Legal Advice
sought to be quashed by the Applicant.
“The 2nd Respondent was not instructed to halt its mandatory statutory review of the casefile nor ordered by the 1st Respondent, or the Presiding Coroner or the Chief Coroner for Lagos State to inform the Honourable Presiding Coroner whenever it was ready to issue the Legal Advice.
They also stated that the Police investigators and the Respondents working on a prima facie criminal inference of the death of the Deceased are independent of the Presiding Coroner.
“The Respondents are answerable only to the Presiding Magistrate who ordered the remand pending the issuance of and to whom the Legal Advice was forwarded to when it was issued.
