The Court of Appeal in Abuja has dismissed an application by Major Hamza Al-Mustapha (retd), former Chief Security Officer to late Head of State General Sani Abacha, seeking an extension of time to appeal a High Court judgment in a dispute over a property in the highbrow Asokoro District of the Federal Capital Territory.
The three-member panel, in a unanimous decision delivered on Monday, also ordered him to pay N1 million in costs to the respondent, Al-Nuri Properties Limited.
Justice Okon Abang, who read the lead judgment, held that the application marked CA/ABJ/PRE/ROA/CV/1439M2/2025 lacked merit and amounted to an abuse of court process. The court found that Al-Mustapha failed to provide sufficient or convincing reasons for the delay in challenging the earlier ruling.
The dispute centres on a landed property in Asokoro that Al-Mustapha reportedly sold to Al-Nuri Properties Limited for about N100 million. After the value of the property appreciated, he sought to reclaim it, describing the original transaction as a loan and offering to refund the sum. The company rejected the offer and, on March 16, 2020, instituted a suit at the High Court of the FCT to assert its ownership.
The High Court, sitting in Zuba, entered a default judgment in favour of Al-Nuri Properties on June 16, 2023, after Al-Mustapha’s legal team failed to participate in the proceedings. Rather than appeal within the prescribed period, Al-Mustapha returned to the same High Court on April 15, 2024, seeking to set aside the judgment. The trial court dismissed that application on September 24, 2025. By then, the deadline for appealing the original June 2023 decision had already passed on September 15, 2024.
Al-Mustapha then approached the Court of Appeal for an extension of time. Justice Abang noted that the records showed repeated failure by the appellant to honour hearing notices at the trial court. The panel rejected his explanation that his legal counsel had abandoned the matter, describing it as insufficient to justify the delay or warrant the court’s indulgence.
“Where there is no excuse, indulgence should not be granted,” Justice Abang held. The court observed that Al-Mustapha’s approach amounted to “doing the right thing at the wrong time” and expressed doubt that he would participate diligently even if the extension were granted, given his prior conduct. On the claim of denial of fair hearing, the justices ruled that any such disadvantage was self-inflicted and that his right to fair hearing had not been violated.
The panel consequently dismissed the application for extension of time and awarded the N1 million costs against Al-Mustapha in favour of Al-Nuri Properties Limited, the sole respondent.
Al-Mustapha served as Chief Security Officer during the military regime of General Sani Abacha in the 1990s. He has been involved in several high-profile legal battles over the years, including cases linked to events during that era, though this matter is a civil property dispute unrelated to those earlier criminal proceedings.
The decision effectively upholds the High Court’s default judgment in favour of the property company and closes Al-Mustapha’s bid to challenge it out of time at the appellate level.
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