By SaharaReporters, New York
Two critical characters from the hallways and byways of injustice in
Nigeria have quietly stepped into the case of convicted Major Hamza
Al-Mustapha, the once powerful Chief Security Officer to late dictator
General Sanni Abacha.
Observers say their task is to set Mustapha free and frustrate the
course of justice for slain democracy heroine, Kudirat Abiola.
Last May, Justice Ibrahim Saulawa, the lead judge of the Court of
Appeal in Lagos withdrew from the appeal instituted by Al Mustapha
citing personal reasons, but sources said he was miffed by a high level
of interference in the case.
The judge withdrew before the court registrar could announce that a
former President of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Joseph B Daudu
(SAN) was becoming the lead counsel. Sources told Saharareporters that
Mr. Daudu had quietly taken over the lucrative deal of representing
Mustapha. Next, Appeal Court judge Amina Augie, stepped in as the lead
judge in the case on June 10, she took the briefing of mr. Daudu and
reserved her ruling on the matter indefinitely.
Observers told SaharaReporters the deadly combination of Justice
Augie and JB Daudu seems targeted at saving Mustapha's case and possibly
freeing him of culpability for the killing of several pro -democracy
activists with the aid of killer squads that were assembled and funded
through his office during the Abacha years.
Daudu is no stranger to such jobs: he was the prosecutor handpicked
by late General Abacha who served his government in the kangaroo trial
of Ken Saro-Wiwa and 8 Ogoni activists, leading to the hanging of the
activists on November 10, 1995.
Both Daudu and Augie were also later involved in the conspiracy to
free former Delta State governor James Ibori from his first corruption
trial in Kaduna in 2008. As the lead judge in the Kaduna Division of the
Court of Appeal, it was Justice Augie who ruled that the former Delta
state governor be returned for trial in the jurisdiction where he
committed the offense of fraud, namely, his home state. That ruling
paved the way for the Delta State government and the Federal High Court
to collaborate to set up a kangaroo court headed by Justice Marcel
Awokulehin. The Federal High Court Asaba was paid for, furnished and
staffed by Ibori’s cousin, Governor Emmanuel Udughan. The court didn’t
waste time in clearing Ibori of all 170 charges of corruption filed by
the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
It would be remembered that Ibori then became a free man, and was
only forced to account for his crimes after he fled to Dubai, from where
he was extradited to the United Kingdom for trial. To forestall
possible humiliation in the Court of Appeal, Justice Augie had been
posted ahead to the Benin Division to prepare to deliver Ibori before
the former governor took matters into his own hands and slipped away to
Dubai.
Al Mustapha and James Ibori served general Abacha in deadly
capacities during his terryfying reign. With Ibori reportedly involved
in the killing of Pa Alfred Rewane, the main financier of the National
Democratic Coalition (NADECO). After Al Mustapha was arrested and
detained for murder Ibori took over the upkeep of his family while he
was governor Delta State.
A legal source in Lagos told SaharaReporters that the bizarre nature
of the current trajectory of the Mustapha case is that Mr. Daudu, when
he represented the son of the late dictator, Mohammed, in the same case
during the Olusegun Obasanjo years had pleaded before the Supreme Court
that Mustapha was the person responsible for Kudirat's death. At that
time, of course, he was serving as the counsel to Abacha's son.
After much wheeling and dealing in that case, a five-man panel
headed by Justice Alpha Belgore ruled that the mere presence of Abacha's
son at the time that Al Mustapha handed guns for the killing of Kudirat
was not sufficient reason to find him guilty. He was set free, leaving
Al Mustapha to answer to the crimes alone.
However, a minority ruling by Justice Akintola Olufemi Ejiwunmi
described the majority judgment by Belgore as a tyranny of the majority.
It held that Abacha son gave the killers of Kudirat Abiola $10k each to
flee the country and that he ought to be held culpable.
Also of great importance is that Sergeant Rogers, a key character in
the killings of that era who is now paralyzed, did confess at the Oputa
panel that it was Al Mustapha who killed Kudirat.
All of the secret maneuvers to free Al Mustapha from the hangman's
noose were kept away from the public until SaharaReporters
investigations began to yield fruit.
On 30 January 2012, Al Mustapha was sentenced to death by a Lagos
High court judge over the 1996 daylight assassination of Alhaja Kudirat
Abiola, the wife of the acclaimed winner of the June 12 1993 election.
