 |
| Major al-Mustapha departing the court |
Since his recent outburst about bribery of somne notable Yoruba leaders in the murder of Chief MKO Abiola, Major Hamza al-Mustapha has received knocks from different quarters. While some dismmissed him as a coward for waiting thisn long to make his revelation public, other analysts believed there must be some element of truth in those allegations.
Human rights activist, Femi Falana described as a man that is hallucinating. Hear him:
“His allegations are diversionary and designed to whip up unnecessary sentiment and make the public lose sight of the gruesome murder of Mrs. Kudirat Abiola, which is the subject of this trial.“I represented the Abiola family at the Oputa Commission of Enquiry. On the many occasions he gave evidence on the illegal killing of General Sani Abacha and Chief M.K.O. Abiola, he never linked the late Chief Bola Ige and Pa. Abraham Adesanya to the killing and neither did he accuse them of connivance.”
You can read further report on this vexed issue when you continue.....
The lawyer said Al-Mustapha should have made his allegation when Ige and Adesanya were both still alive.
Falana said, “A Yoruba adage says it is a liar who says his witness is in heaven. following the cold murder of Mrs Kudirat Abiola on June 4, 1996, Pa Adesanya, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, Pa Ore Onasanya and Chief Ige were arrested by Al-Mustapha and detained on the allegation that they conspired to kill the lady.
“When those allegations collapsed, Kola Abiola was arrested under the guise that Kudirat was killed as a result of a family feud. Miss Hafsat Abiola had to come out to say her brother could not have killed her mother.”
He also made a reference to the brutal murder of Pa. Alfred Rewane in his house at GRA Ikeja, Lagos.
Falana said, “The armed goons who perpetrated those dastardly act had given evidence in court where they admitted before the Oputa Commission of Enquiry that they were agents of Al-Mustapha.
“The ongoing trial pertains specifically to the cold murder of Kudirat. All efforts to implicate the victims of the massive repression of that time are dubiously designed by a man who is suffering from prolonged detention hallucination to divert the course of justice.
“The fact that the Adesanya and Ige met with Gen. Abdusalam Abubakar was in the public domain. Let him show the footage of when he claimed money exchanged hands between the deceased and Abubakar.”
According to the human rights activist, M.K.O Abiola was detained in dehumanising conditions for four years in a custody supervised by Al-Mustapha. He said even Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa lamented the terrible state in which he found Abiola when he visited Nigeria.
He said, “I was allowed to see him. He told the world he met an Abiola whose health was greatly impaired and could die anytime. At that time, he had fallen down in the bathroom and had a broken ankle. He was in excruciating pain as he was denied medical attention, which he offered to pay for himself.”
Also The Nation Newspaper reported yesterday's court sitting thus:
It was an anti-climax yesterday at the Lagos High Court.
The former Chief Security Officer (CSO) to the late General Sani Abacha, Hamza Al-Mustapha, killed the excitement of the crowd that besieged the court to see a video of some Yoruba leaders collecting cash from the government after Chief Moshood Abiola’s death.
When the video tape (VHS) was played, it contained less than a minute’s clip of an encounter between some pro-democracy activists, led by the late Chief Abraham Adesanya, and some journalists, who asked him questions on their meeting with the then Head of State, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar.
Most people, who had a hectic time entering the court because of the large crowd, were disappointed when the video ended. They had anticipated scenes that would support al-Mustapha’s claim that Yoruba leaders received money from the government and were happy when they emerged from the Presidential Villa.
Easily identified in the video were the late Adesanya, Dr. Arthur Nwankwo of the then Eastern Mandate Union (EMU), who stood behind the late Adesanya and the late Chief Bola Ige, who wore a blue guinea brocade.
As against al-Mustapha’ claim, neither Adesanya nor Dr. Nwankwo looked happy while responding to questions from the journalists. Adesanya only smiled at the end of the interview when he said: “Journalists can now disperse” and everyone laughed.
In his testimony yesterday before the court in Igbosere, al-Mustapha claimed that the encounter in the video took place at the frontage of the Presidential Villa, Abuja. He could only identify the late Adesanya as the leader of the delegation and the late Ige in the video.
He said the Yoruba leaders met with Gen. Abubakar and then National Security Adviser Gen. Abdullahi Abubakar. He was not at the meeting, he said, because he had handed over to another CSO. al-Mustapha said he would have had more recordings, using the Close Circuit Television (CCTV), if he was still the CSO.
The former CSO, who testified at the resumption of his trial for the murder of the late Abiola’s wife, Alhaja Kudurat, in Lagos, accused former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Nuhu Ribadu of working to eliminate him and others at the beginning of the case in 1999
Source: The Punch and The Nation
No comments:
Post a Comment