[b]The outgoing Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice Abdullahi Mustapha, yesterday revealed that if Chief MKO Abiola had accepted the bail he granted him in 1994, he would have been alive today.
The bail, which was reportedly arranged by the acclaimed strongman of Ibadan politics, the late Alhaji Lamidi Adedibu, was laden with several conditionalities which would have seen Abiola relinquish his claim to the June 12 mandate as well as desist from participate in political activities.
Abiola’s lawyer then, Chief GOK Ajayi, said if he had accepted those conditions, he would have become a political vegetable.
Abiola died in detention on July 7, 1998.
But in his first public remarks, Justice Mustapha, who adjudicated the case in 1994, said if Abiola had accepted the bail granted to him, “he would not have died the way he did”.
According to the retiring judge, who was reliving his years at the Bench, “when I released him on bail, they said they never asked for it”.
Attributing the moment as the most difficult in his career as there was a lot of negative media report against him over the matter, he said he was grateful to God for being the only surviving judge that handled the June 12 matter.
Mustapha, who attributed his becoming a judge to destiny from the then the Attorney-General of Niger State, also blamed tribalism and absence of laid-down procedure in the appointment of judges as one of the major challenges facing the nation.
The chief judge, speaking an interactive luncheon with judges, staff and administrative heads of judicial divisions of the Federal High Court, in Lagos, charged the in-coming Chief Judge, Justice Dan Abutu, not to over-use or under-use the powers of the CJ if he wants to succeed since the Federal High Court “represents a mini Nigeria and one family”.
He said: “I told the National Judicial Council two weeks ago that I am leaving with a smile. I am also happy that for the first time, judges were being appointed on their merit, with the involvement of sitting Judges so I will feel disappointed if any of the new judges misbehave.”
Earlier, the chief registrar, Mr. Nathaniel Ayo-Emmanuel, extolled the outgoing chief judge for his vision in dealing with the twin issues of tardy and unnecessarily prolonged litigations through the new civil procedure Rules 2009 – as well as superintending over the expansion of the judicial space by inaugurating divisions of the court in Bauchi, Awka, Ekiti, Asaba, Jigawa, Gombe, Zamfara and Lafia.
For the representative of the Chief Justice of the Federation, Lady Baby Obodoukwu, “the retiring Chief Judge is a disciplined, resourceful and purposeful judge that sticks on merit and rule of law”.

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THIS DAY.