Court orders re-arraignment of the late MKO Abiola’s wife for assaulting female police officer, as family disowns her

A Magistrate’s Court in Wuse zone 6, Abuja, has ordered the re-arraignment of Professor Zainab Duke Abiola and her domestic aide, Rebecca Enechido, at the high court.

They were arraigned at the magistrate court on Friday last week for charges bordering on culpable homicide.

The court on Wednesday ruled that it lacked jurisdiction to entertain the case and consequently made an order directing the prosecution to re-arraign the duo at the high court which is the court conferred with jurisdiction.

It however granted the defendants bail on the condition that they shall present two reasonable sureties who must be resident in the Federal Capital Territory.

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According to the ruling, the defendants are expected to report at the FCT Police command every Monday pending their re-arraignment.

The court warned that the order shall abate if the police failed to re-arraign the defendants between 5th October 2022 and 1st November, 2022.

The prosecutor, Stanley Nwafoaku said the police had completed steps to re-arraign the defendants.

Meanwhile, members of the Abiola family have disowned the Professor said to be their late patriarch’s widow, reports Saharareporters.

Zainab was married to Chief Moshood Abiola, popularly known as MKO Abiola, the late hero of June 12.

However, no fewer than three of the children of the late winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election have expressed dissatisfaction with the woman’s link to the family, including by the media, following her alleged assault of a policewoman.

One of Abiola’s children told Abuja Reporters that Zainab Duke was married to MKO Abiola in 1983 and based on this, the late businessman sponsored her at the University of Sokoto where she read English.

One of the sources said because of Abiola’s closeness to the late Sultan of Sokoto, she stayed in the palace all through her years in Sokoto and after her degree, she left the place. Zainab was said to have graduated in 1986.

“The family was taken aback when she wedded (Alfred) Diete-Spiff in 1989. Her wedding to the former military Governor who is now a traditional ruler in Rivers State was well publicised in society magazines such as then Classique magazine which had now been rested. It was a society wedding,” one of the Abiola family sources said.

According to the children, she later returned after MKO Abiola died to claim that she reconciled with the late businessman and indeed had a child with him in 1994.

She also allegedly claimed she had a copy of the man’s will that was signed in 1994.

The issue of the 1994 will of MKO Abiola came up in a London court after the businessman died; however, the family said it highlighted Zainab’s fraudulent and deceitful nature.

“While many family members including the scions of the family were aware of the 1991 will, Zainab Duke, took the family to court in London after Abiola’s demise and claimed that the earlier will was not the authentic one and that she had a will deposed to by Abiola in 1994. The said will recognised her as a wife of the late billionaire while the earlier one didn’t.

“After a series of forensic analyses which took about two years, the London court declared the will presented by Zainab as forged. She was subsequently ‘derobed’ by the English court which meant she could no longer practice law in England. She also lost her job at Middlesex University in the UK where she lectured Law.

“The Abiola family is however at a loss how someone who was ‘derobed’ in the UK and lost her position as a lecturer came to be a Professor in Nigeria,” the family said. (Freedomwatch)