Al-Mustapha’s new status

[Mirror]

Not until penultimate Friday when the Court of Appeal sitting in Lagos upheld his appeal against the judgement of a lower court, which sentenced him to death by hanging, the former chief security officer to the former military ruler, General Sanni Abacha, Major Hamza Al-Mustapha was not sure whether he would live.

With death penalty hanging on his head at a time state governors were told not to delay death warrants, surely the man would have had only the Supreme Court as his last hope had the appeal failed. Having regained freedom from the hangman's noose may not have guaranteed an all-round status of a free man for the former strongman of the Abacha regime.

As expected, the decision of the court has been subjected to various analyses from different segments of the society depending, of course, on which side of the divide one belongs to.

His acquittal came after 14 years of legal battle to prove his innocence in the murder of the wife of the acclaimed winner of the June 12 1993 elections, Kudirat Abiola.

Prior to his struggle to free himself from the complex legal trial, Major Al-Mustapha had been implicated by the main culprit in the crime, Sergeant Barnabas Rogers, who had told the story of how the state sponsored the murder in order to kill the June 12 spirit which the woman was championing in the absence of her husband who was then in detention of the Abacha regime.

There is no doubting the fact that the regime was, indeed, the tormentor- in- chief of the Abiolas given the fact that whatever the regime decided on the acclaimed winner, Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, was within the control of the CSO, given his powerful position in the government.

Apart from the death of his wife, Chief Abiola himself never returned alive from that detention, even after the unexpected death of Gen Abacha on June 8, 1998 under mysterious circumstances.

Shortly afterwards, the fears expressed over Abiola's safety in detention came to light as he too eventually died on July 8, 1998 mysteriously too, thus compounding the already complex situation of resolving the issues of moving the polity forward from the confusion and the logjam occasioned by the annulment of the elections, adjudged the most free and fair polls ever conducted in the country.

While in office and as the de facto number two, albeit unofficially, if anyone had told the CSO that he was going to ride a rough tide similar to what he had just gone through, it would have been difficult for him to comprehend the circumstances that could have made that possible with the enormous powers and resources at his disposal then.

But alas, it is now history that he also had a taste of what others passed through under the regime of the maximum ruler and military dictator in which he was a major player.

It was under that regime too that then number two-man, General Oladipupo Diya, General Tajudeen Olanrewaju, Abdulkareem Adisa some journalists and others were implicated in a coup and sentenced to death also.

Just the same way no one could have imagined the death of Abacha, nobody could have imagined the fate that befell Al-Mustapha, but this time around under a democratically-elected government and at a time that the country has tasted 14 years of democracy and civility in governance.

From being a detainee before the start of his trial, until he was pronounced guilty and sentenced to death before his recent acquittal and discharge, Major Al-Mustapha's battles will continue to remain a reference point, no matter what he decides to do with his life.

Though the Nigerian Army has acknowledged that he is still in service after 14 years of incarceration, even if he quits now, he will still have to engage many stakeholders. As he settles down to reorganize his life after the prison experience, the former strongman will soon discover that he has plenty of battles, though not physical, to contend with in moving ahead.

He has been told to forgive just as others may have also been advised to forgive him too, but the bottom- line is that such experiences are usually too difficult to forget.

National Mirror