Kudirat Abiola: Al-Mustapha, Lateef Sofolahan to Taste Death

Al Mustapha

Kudirat Abiola

*Accused Sentenced to death by Hanging.

*Hafsat Abiola-Costello judgement over due.

             

By Damilola Towobola                 

Embattled former Chief Security Officer, CSC to late Head of State, General Sani Abacha, Major Hamzat Al-Mustapha and a protocol officer in the MKO Abiola campaign organisation, Alhaji Lateef Shofolahan, lastweek at the Lagos High Court sitting in Igbosere, were sentenced to death by hanging for the conspiracy to murder and murder charge preferred against them. A Lagos High Court sitting in Igbosere delivered the judgment Monday afternoon.

Abacha

Al-Mustapha, as well as Lateef Sofolahan was sentenced to death by hanging having been convicted of the murder of Mrs. Abiola, wife of Chief Moshood Abiola, widely believed to have won the 12 June 1993 Presidential elections. She was assassinated along the Lagos/Ibadan express way on 4 June 1996 over her campaign for the de-annulment of the election.

Al-Mustapha, the former Chief Security Officer to the late Head of State, General Sani Abacha, as well Lateef Sofolahan, the protocol officer for the deceased who was accused of divulging details of Mrs. Abiola's whereabouts on the day of her murder, have both been embroiled in a 12-year-long trial. The 12-year long case is said to be the longest in the nation’s history.

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 Sani Abacha. When Abacha was Chief of Army between August 1985 and August 1990, al-Mustapha was his Aide-de-Camp.

Hamza al-Mustapha was appointed Chief Security Officer to the Head of State (CSOHS) with a Special Strike Force Unit during Abacha's military regime, other security outfits at the time were the Office of the National Security Adviser under Ismaila Gwarzo, the Directorate of Military Intelligence, the State Security Service and the National Intelligence Agency. All of these units engaged in extrajudicial killings of people seen as threats to the regime. Captain (later Major) Hamza al-Mustapha had exceptional power, considerably greater than other officers who were nominally his superior.

After being appointed Chief Security Officer, Al-Mustapha established a number of small security outfits recruited from the military and other security organizations, and trained in Israel and Korea. Abacha's National Security Adviser, Ismaila Gwarzo and al-Mustapha were said to be responsible for much of the "torture, killing and wanton looting" during Abacha's rule. On the orders of Sani Abacha's wife Maryam, al-Mustapha detained and tortured several women suspected to be Abacha's girlfriends. As head of the State Security Service (SSS) al-Mustapha was also said to be involved in drug trafficking, using diplomatic pouches to transport the drugs, his wife, an Arab in origin, coordinated a ring of traffickers in the Gulf States.

After Abacha's sudden death in June 1998, Al-Mustapha was quickly removed from his job by the transitional regime established by General Abdulsalam Abubakar. In October that year he appeared in court with Abacha's son Mohammed, charged with the murder in June 1996 of Kudirat Abiola, wife of the presidential candidate, M.K.O. Abiola who had died in jail in July 1998. At the trial the killer, Sergeant Barnabas Jabila, said he was obeying orders from his superior, Al-Mustapha. Al Mustapha and four others were also charged with a 1996 attempt to murder Alex Ibru, publisher of The Guardian and Abacha's Minister of Internal Affairs and Chief Isaac Porbeni, a former naval officer.

While the trials proceeded, al Mustapha was detained at the Kirikiri maximum security prisons. While imprisoned, on 1 April 2004 he was charged with involvement in a plot to overthrow the government. Allegedly he had conspired with others to shoot down the helicopter carrying President Olusegun Obasanjo using a surface-to-air missile that had been smuggled into the country from Benin.



Sofolahan, accomplied by Police



In 2007, there were appeals for al Mustapha's release by four newspapers and by former head of state Ibrahim Babangida. Eventually after 12 years of  imprisonment, trials and retrials, al-Mustapha and his co-defendants were acquitted of most charges on 21 December 2010. The co-defendants were former Lagos State Police Commissioner, James Danbaba, former Zamfara State military administrator, Jibril Bala Yakubu and former head of the Aso Rock Anti-Riot Police, Rabo Lawal.



Hafsat



However, Al-Mustapha was still not cleared of the alleged murder of Kudirat Abiola for which he was being tried separately. In May 2011 there were rumors that Al-Mustapha had been murdered at the Kirikiri Maximum Security Prisons where he was being held, but these turned out to be untrue.

Reacting to the Judgement of the Lagos high Court, daughter of the deceased, Mrs. Hafsat Abiola-Costello, described the sentence as a judgement for Nigerians and said it was long overdue. She stated that there had been no doubt of Mustapha’s involvement in her mothers killing, adding further that it brings some closure to the Family still grieving the lost, Hafsat admitted that the trial had taken far too long.

Meanwhile, a release from the spokesperson of the Islamic Sect Boko Haram has dared the Nigerian Government dared on the execution of the sentence on Major Hamza Al mustapha Rtd, stating that their full scale attacks will be expanded from security agencies and agents to the judiciary, from police stations to courts and so on.