CONDEMNED prisoner, Hamza Al-Mustapha was shocked beyond marrows when a Lagos High Court found him guilty of the assassination of late Kudirat Abiola, wife of presumed winner of June 12, 1993 presidential election, Moshood Kashimawo Abiola.
Mustapha then warned that if he is eventually killed, his spirit will confront the Judge who passed the death sentence on him because he is innocent, according to him. Kudirat was killed on June 4, 1996, after her husband who is popularly known as M.K.O Abiola died in detention.
Competent sources told us that Mustapha was convinced that the court will set him free from his alleged offence that day and had concluded plans to re-join his family in Kano.
“When Justice Mojisola Dada of a Lagos High Court pronounced the death sentence on him, Mustapha thought he was an actor in a tragic-comical movie. He looked morose as he unconsciously fixed his gaze at the composed Judge. He tried to force a wry smile but it was obvious the convict was in deep pains.
Dada’s pronouncement was loud and clear: “Light shines in darkness and darkness comprehend it not. Those who shed innocent blood are those who fear death most. Therefore, according to section 3, 1 and 9 of the Criminal Code, you are guilty and should be dead by hanging. You shall be hanged until you are pronounced dead.”
Mustapha was said to have told fellow inmates at Kirikiri Maximum Security Prison that he could go home from the court on the day of judgment or probably return to pick up some of his important properties particularly some books he managed to sneak into the prison.
According to prison sources: “He was full of confidence that morning as he was preparing to leave for court, he greeted us warmly and assured us that he will be set free and in that case he could go home from the court or return to take some of his things, maybe his books he had said.”
we gathered that Mustapha was convinced that the evidence he gave during one of his previous appearances in which he accused some Yoruba leaders as being accomplices to Abiola’s death was enough to attest to his alleged innocence even in the case of Kudirat. “He basked in the false belief that he had convinced the trial Judge and had proved his case beyond reasonable doubt by providing the video tape of the visit of some Yoruba leaders to Aso Rock. You remember he alleged in his evidence that the influential personalities were financially induced to accept Abiola’s death as a done deal.
Mustapha had claimed that he enjoyed an intimate relationship with Abiola, he attended to his vital needs while in detention and saved him from being killed by the 1997 coup plotters who planned to take him away for execution. Mustapha had wondered why he could have killed the wife of a man he so much respected in his life time.
Islamists sentiment
The death sentence passed on Mustapha has inadvertently attracted a counter-death sentence from the Boko Haram Fundamental Islamic Sect. Boko Haram had stated in its reaction to the Mustapha case that it will kill any Nigerian Judge who is involved in passing death sentence against Mustapha.
“Should the Nigerian government dare carry out the sentence announced on Major Hamza Al-Mustapha (rtd) the full scale attacks will be expanded from Security Agencies and agents to the judiciary, from Police Stations to Courts and so on. All Chief Justices, High Court Judges and Appeal Court Judges should take note. The blood of Mustapha is the blood of Nigerian masses.”
Islamic clerics who spoke to our reporter criticised Boko Haram for dabbling into a purely criminal matter thereby betraying the group’s lack of respect for the rule of law and order.
“It shows the group contempt for other Nigerians who are no Hausa-Fulanis, the implication of Boko Haram’s thoughtless statement is that you can commit crime, kill other people as far as they are not Hausa-Fulanis. Boko Haram is not even sensitive because M.K.O Abiola and Kudirat were Muslim, unless they are insinuating that they were Yoruba Muslims. In that case it will be selective justice.
“The holy Koran does not support their stand on the Mustapha issue. The Koran admonishes us to respect human life, to abide by the rule of law and order. No one life is costly and that of the other cheap,” a Muslim from the South-west said, adding: “You know Boko Haram is an extremist group of unintelligent people who act out of impulse and lust for blood, it is not a real Islamic group. So, I appeal to the State and Federal government to beef up security around court judges to maintain their confidence.
The federal government should not take things for granted because Boko Haram’s statement is like a Fatuwa on Nigerian judges, though a conditional one. Although, I am not in support of death sentence on any one for that matter, no matter his offence, I believe in reasonable prison terms to save the purpose of reforming the person.”
The statement by Boko Haram violent Islamist sect, had spurred security agencies last week to begin investigation on an intelligence report that Mustapha may be one of the brains behind the formation of the group. The security is said to be studying the possibility that Mustapha is through some of his visitors in contact with the group whom he may consider as a weapon to cause crisis in the North for reasons of instability and reversion of power to the north: “You know Mustapha is an intelligence officer.
Such men by their training thinks ahead, they reason above ordinary people. It may be that Mustapha believes that instability will help his case as no one would want to approve his execution for security reason, and if a northerner becomes president again he may be granted state pardon, Yar’Adua would have done it if he did not die when the issue was about to be decided,” a security source said, adding: “Some people have been making uninformed comment on Mustapha’s 13 years trial. They are unaware that it was Mustapha who employed delayed trial in the case.
He deliberately challenged court procedures and sought for unnecessary injunctions. His strategy is that the case will not be concluded until a malleable president grants him state pardon or the public begin to sympathise with him and demand for his release from detention as it nearly happened.”
Security Agencies are said to be working on the clue that Mustapha intend to use the Boko Haram to intimidate the police and judiciary in his desperate attempt to secure his freedom.
“Boko Haram group is known to have broken into prisons and secured the release of their detained members, so security would immediately be beefed up in the prison were Mustapha is being detained and instruction will be giving for regular search to be conducted in the prison yard and on the inmates. Visitors to the prison will henceforth be thoroughly screened and their interaction with inmates more closely monitored,” a prison source said.
Condemned
sources said that when Mustapha returned to the prison yard after his conviction he was dawn cast and could hardly talk to anyone, though he was said to occasionally flashed a fleeting smile which faded away soonest. He was led to his new cell: the condemned men cell, which is being given a face lift. He was said to be sober initially when he came back from the court but later he mustered courage and began talking to some warders who came to carry a check on him.
“I will not die. I have told my lawyers to file for an appeal. I am confident of upturning my conviction at the Appeal Court or the Supreme Court. If I die for an offence I did not commit my spirit will fight the judge who condemned me to death and the government officials who approved the unjust sentence,” Mustapha was quoted as saying. He allegedly added: “But I am confident that I shall not die, I will live. I have the promise of Allah.”
Mustapha was said to have began another regime of hunger strike as soon as he returned to the prison from the court and has so far not yielded to the persuasion of the warders to eat some food. He is said to be constantly praying and counting his tasbiu. “Probably, he is not on hunger strike but merely fasting for spiritual strength. His wife and younger brother, Hadi, was around to see him at the weekend. It was a pathetic sight to behold. His wife was weeping profusely. I saw them at the gate but I am not sure they allowed them to see him,” a prison source said.
National Daily gathered that some mosque in the north have started praying for Mustapha’s safety just as political leaders like governors and emir have resolved to use their influence to secure reprieve for Mustapha. “They are just waiting for the Appeal Court to give her ruling on the death sentence before they do something to save him,” a source said.
Killer squad
Hamza Al-Mustapha was found guilty of allegedly using Sergeant Barnabas Msheila, a member of the assassination squad he allegedly controlled in the presidential villa where he served as the Chief Security Officer to the late Head of State, General Sani Abacha, to kill Alhaja Kudirat Abiola and M.K.O Abiola. During the trial Mustapha had admitted under cross examination, that the Abacha regime had para-military squad called “Special Strike Force (SSF) and specially trained-training Bodyguards known as “BG” that were used to contain or repel all aggressive or offence attacks on the government. The Strike Force was said to have been created by then National Security Board (NSB) on January 2, 1995 and began work in many of the same year.
SSF members with 80 members were trained in Libya while the Bodyguards which was made up 300 men where trained in North Korea.
Security Agencies are working hard to verify whether the present Boko Haram sect had in its membership, remnant of Al-Mustapha’s terrorist squad which unleashed violence on Abacha’s opponent.
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