By Richard Elesho
Like a Roman Centurion, he was a man set under furious authority. He could say to one soldier, come and he cometh. And to another go, and he goeth. As the defacto boss in the heady days of the General Sani Abacha’s military interregnum (1993-98), the fear of Major Hamza Al-Mustapha was the beginning of wisdom. Ask the late Abdulkareem Adisa, a Major General and former Minister, who proudly admitted to kneeling to beg the powerful Major.
The incorrigible brat extended the frontiers of his schedules as Chief Security Officer to the Head of State and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. He was the law, dispensing the weapons of life and death according to his mood.
In fact, on the return of democracy, a judicial panel of inquiry headed by the respected late jury, Chukwudifu Oputa, indicted Al-Mustapha and others for gross human rights violations and extra-judicial killings both of which compelled the citizenry to live in fear.
That was then when dictatorship was the fad. Now politics is in the air and with it several public office seekers, including Al-Mustapha. He is the Presidential candidate of Action Alliance, AA, one of the 18 political parties contesting in the February 22 poll.
To be sure, this is not his maiden participation in a Presidential poll. He founded the Green Party of Nigeria, GPN and after an alliance emerged Presidential candidate of the Peoples Party of Nigeria, PPN in the last election cycle. Last month during a consultation with a female group, Al-Mustapha wept for Nigeria and vowed to relocate to Sambissa Forest if he is elected President.
A major difference in his current mission according to discerning minds, however, seems to be the determination to alter information in the public space, about his ghoulish antecedents. There is an active attempt not only to rewrite history but to turn it upside down.
The family and loyalists of the late Abacha junta recently launched moves to launder his image through an annual colloquium. On Sat 22 October they gathered in Abuja for the second edition, organised by the Centre for Political Research, Education and Development, CEPORED. The participants urged the Federal Government to borrow a leaf from Abacha’s economic policies. Not surprisingly, Al-Mustapha stole the show eulogizing the patriotism and statesmanship of his former boss.
The event was a prologue to a more daring venture. On Tuesday 8 November, Al-Mustapha launched deeper into history offering a new dimension to his post-service trial and travails. He alleged that officers of the Lagos State Government stage-managed his prosecution. He claimed that Vice president Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, then working as Lagos State Attorney General, coached Sergeant Barnabas Jabila Mshiola, aka Sergeant Rogers, on what to say to implicate him in the various high-profile political assassinations in the country during the Abacha era.
He made the allegations during his appearance as a guest in the presidential candidates series on 90 Minutes Africa with Rudolf Okonkwo and Chido Onumah. Listen to him in part.
“Sergeant Rogers and one Abdul Katanko came to the court and then revealed all that they were asked to say during the Oputa Panel.
“Rogers made mention of the Lagos prosecutors, including the present vice president who was the Attorney General of Lagos State at that time. Rogers told the court that it was the Attorney General of Lagos State and some of the prosecutors, who I learned are now judges in Lagos High Court today, who taught him what to say.”
He further stated that Osinbajo and Sergeant Rogers agreed to incriminate him and ensure the government killed him. “A justification for me to be killed was what brought Rogers to read that narrative. The confession of Rogers is in black and white, captured by the Lagos High Court,” he added.
TheNEWS recalls that following the death of Abacha in the shrouded circumstances in June 1998 and the emergence of General Abdulsalam Abubakar as Head of State, Al-Mustapha was incarcerated. The Oputa Panel indicted him subsequently upon which he was charged with sundry criminal activities.
He was subjected to about fifteen years of trial in high profile murder, attempted assassinations and treason. Indeed a Lagos High Court head had on 30 January 2012, found him guilty of the murder of Alhaja Kudirat Abiola, wife of the winner of the annulled June 12, 1993, election, Bashorum MKO Abiola.
Some operatives had made confessional statements on the attempted murder of Chief Alex Ibru, Chief Abraham Adesanya, Isaac Poubeni et cetera. In particular, it was disclosed by the suspects that they carried out the iniquitous crimes on the orders of the embattled CSO.
Sgt. Rogers a member of the Strike Force and Presidential Guard commanded by Al-Mustapha, confessed to pulling the trigger that killed Kudirat on June 4, 1996, as directed by the CSO. The court headed by Justice Modupe Dada, therefore, sentenced the now Presidential candidate to death by hanging.
However, luck shined on him on 12 July 2013. The Court of Appeal in Lagos overturned the high court judgement and acquitted Al-Mustapha of all murder charges of Kudirat Abiola. During the fifteen-year trial, he appeared before thirteen different judges and two magistrates.
Following his release, a dissatisfied Lagos State Government in January 2017, filed an appeal with the Supreme Court of Nigeria, for the apex court to uphold the previous death by-hanging verdict of the Lagos High Court.
Despite the trajectories of his judicial travails, a section of the Nigerian Human Rights Community believes Al-Mustapha is enjoying a narrow escape from the law. Some expressed concerns about his release and acquittal. Femi Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, puts it succinctly.
“Suffice it to say that under the criminal justice system, only the poor are successfully prosecuted for murder and sundry offences because they lack the resources to manipulate the criminal justice system. Ours has become a banana republic that is managed by a ruling class which cannot even protect the lives of its members. As for the rest of the society, it has become a case of everyone for himself and God for us all.”