Allah is great....He has vindicated me and a few others who stood on the side of the truth when it mattered most. Al-Mustapha’s death sentence, a conspiracy against Jonathan, says Dokubo-Asari Major Hamza al-Mustapha was the Chief Security Officer (CSO) to the late Gen. Sani Abacha, the Military Head of State of Nigeria from November 1993 to June 1998. After Abacha’s death, he was arrested and put on trial for the murder of Mrs. Kudirat Abiola, wife of the winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, the late Chief MKO Abiola and the attempted murder of the now late, Mr.Alex Ibru. On 30th January 2012, al-Mustapha was sentenced to death by hanging by Justice Mojisola Dada of a Lagos High Court over the murder of Kudirat. Before the death sentence, al-Mustapha had spent 13 years in detention in Lagos. Al-Mustapha joined the army and was trained as an intelligence operative. He was involved in at least two investigations of coup attempts. His conduct of interrogations brought him to the attention of the late Abacha. When Abacha was Chief of Army (August 1985 – August 1990) al-Mustapha was his Aide-de-Camp. Al-Mustapha was later appointed Abacha’s CSO. While in prison, on 1 April 2004, he was charged with being involved in a plot to shoot down the helicopter carrying the then President Olusegun Obasanjo, using a surface-to-air missile that had been smuggled into the country from Benin Republic. In this telephone interview with EMMANUEL ENYINNAYA APPOLOS, former President of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) and leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF), Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari said that the sentence on al-Mustapha was in bad faith and a conspiracy against the presidency of President Goodluck Jonathan. THIRTEEN years after his arrest , Major Hamza al Mustapha was this week pronounced guilty of the murder of Alhja Kudirat Abiola. What is your view abou that? I don’t think there is anything wrong in sentencing an individual who has committed a crime in accordance with the law in any civilized society. But what took place in Lagos is a mockery of justice and judiciary in Nigeria. Sergeant Rogers (Sergeant Barnabas Jabila) and the driver that drove him to the crime scene, have confessed to the crime and said that they were given order by al-Mustapha; no written order or memo was produced in court. They verbally said they were given order to go and kill. Now, if men who admitted to have committed a crime are walking free, why is it that a man, who allegedly sent them, is to face a death penalty? Another man, who is supposed to be a protocol officer to Kudirat, is also sentenced. What sort of judgment is that? Such judgment cannot stand the test of time because it makes ridicule of Nigeria as a very primitive society. There is nothing in this judgment as far as I am concerned. The day that judgment was given in Lagos, is the worst day in the history of this world. I don’t think in any part of the world, such a judgment will be delivered. That a man who confessed that he committed a crime is allowed to walk free and another who is alleged to have sent him to commit crime is sentenced to death by hanging after 12 years in prison! If people think it is about al-Mustapha, then they are joking because if the injustice is allowed, it will become a precedent and tomorrow, even you as a journalists, one idiot will come and say something and if they catch him, he will say that it is you, the journalist, that asked him to say what he said and the Nigeria judiciary will clap for him and tell him well done for saying it and then turn to you and order that you be killed. That is what it means. Why didn’t they go after the Abacha family because since al-Mustapha was serving under Abacha? It should be taken for granted that he was acting on Abacha’s orders. What is your view about the fact that he had spent 12 years in prison before the judgment came? There is this saying that judgment delayed is judgment denied. The delay in the prosecution of this case is something that is very, very questionable. The delay was in bad taste and that has been the system of the Nigerian judiciary, trying to punish innocent people. I believe al-Mustapha is innocent, he didn’t commit the crime. Sergeant Rogers and the driver are the people to be sentenced and they have confessed to the crime they committed. What makes you think he is innocent? He is innocent because somebody, in the person of Sergeant Rogers, came to court under oath and confessed that he murdered Kudirat. After he confessed, the same court asked him to go and Nigerians didn’t ask why he was asked to go after he confessed that he murdered the woman. What was the motive to kill Kudirat? We must ask questions now. Go and read Lamido Sanusi’s submission that the Yoruba are the problem with Nigeria, and you will know why we must ask every important question now. He said that since 1999. On your Facebook page, you posted this comment “This is a day of shame for us all....shame on you Nigeria....Al-Mustapha and other innocent men will not die....they will live. Insha Allah...the treachery and conspiracy against Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan will fail. When your man Obasanjo was there for eight years, you did not get a conviction...Umar Musa Yar’Adua, you did not get a conviction....Shame on you...your conspiracy will fail.” What is the treachery and conspiracy against Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan in this development? On the same Facebook page of mine where you got this, go back there. I have posted the Sanusi’s “Yoruba are the problem with Nigeria”. Go and read it. It is there. Go and read it and see how some people in Yoruba land have always instigated crises against any government they feel they are not benefiting from. It is very clear from the exposure made by this government that 99 per cent of those who collected the fuel subsidy money are Yoruba people. So, the effort of the government to stop paying for fuel subsidy didn’t go down well with them. So, they now unleashed their dogs; those they called civil rights activists and asked them to occupy Nigeria, but we resisted them because we knew where they were going. After the strike failed to give them what they wanted, they now want to use al-Mustapha. My position on al-Mustapha has been very clear. I believe he didn’t commit the crime; he should be left to go. I have some facts at my disposal that if he is released, it will change the perception of a lot of people, but there are some people who are very close to somebody that one does not want to be exposed to some danger. That is why somebody has not disclosed what went wrong. Even the death of Dr. Omatsola, Nigerians are yet to be told about how he died. Was he killed, or how important was he to the Nigerian security that they noticed him and killed him? These are the important questions we have to ask. For me, there is a motive behind the timingof the judgment because there is Boko Haram in the north. Since Boko Haram is going on in the north, if they now sentence al-Mustapha, they will now say that the government of Jonathan is anti-north. They will not say it is Lagos State Government. The person in charge of the government in Nigeria today is an Ijaw man. I am an Ijaw man. My loyalty and protection is to my nation- Ijaw and every Ijaw man. What they want to do is to instigate people against the government of Goodluck Jonathan. That is what is going on. It is a deliberate ploy to set the people against Goodluck. Obasanjo was there why didn’t they sentence al-Mustapha under Obasanjo? At the time of Obasanjo, he was supposed to be the enemy of the government of Lagos State; that would have been the most appropriate time to carry out this shame called judgement against al-Mustapha. I understand you were part and parcel of the June 12 struggle. What do have to say about the struggle in view of the recent development? Most of us participated in the June 12 struggle on principle because we believed that MKO was deprived of his mandate. We never looked at whether he was a Yoruba man or a Muslim, the same way we are now looking at the ploy and conspiracy to kill al-Mustapha. I want to ask: Of what importance was Kudirat to the June 12 struggle that if she was killed, the struggle would be truncated? What role was Kudirat playing in the June 12 struggle? Was she in contact with people in the Diaspora, like Professor Wole Soyinka, General Alani Akinnrinade, Chief Ralph Onuoha, Commodore Dan Sulieman, Pa Anthony Enahoro and others who were in exile? How close was she to those people? What influence did she exert over those people? Al-Mustapha has appealed against the judgment. Do think anything contrary will come out of the appeal? There is so much injustice in this place called Nigeria. But I pray that wise counsel and people who have the ability to dispense justice in accordance with established rule of justice, should be the people who will preside over this case. In this case, even if Satan himself had presided over this judgment in the court of first instance, he would not have sentenced al-Mustapha. So if Satan will be the judge at the appeal, looking at the facts of the case, Satan will say, al-Mustapha, even though I like killing people, you go. You are an innocent man. How on earth will a judge allow Sergeant Rogers who pulled the trigger to go and sentence a man who is alleged to have ordered him to kill? Where is the memo? Where Rogers’ evidence is that al-Mustapha asked him to kill Kudirat? It makes no sense. Culled from the Nigerian Compass Newspaper, Sunday 5, 2012
Posted on: Mon, 15 Jul 2013 05:35:02 +0000
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