Kudirat Abiola Was Not Killed By Al-Mustapha - OPC Leader, Fasheun Reveals

 

In an interview with Punch few months ago, Nigerian medical doctor, hotel owner and the leader of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) Dr. Frederick Fasehun has explained why he went to Kano with Maj. Hamza Al-Mustapha, the former Chief Security Officer of late Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha.

How can you define your relationship with Hamza Al-Mustapha?
He is a Nigerian, I’m a Nigerian. He is a Nigerian citizen that was wrongly accused and I’m a crusader for justice. I felt that he was a victim of injustice. I thought my attribution and characteristics should come to play by telling the entire world that there was no justice in the treatment he was given for an offence he did not commit.

Many believe that Al-Mustapha masterminded the assassination of several people, including Kudirat Abiola, and some people testified to that in court. How come you say he is innocent?
Is that not the story we were told? Is that not what the media gave to the public? The press didn’t write to tell the Nigerian public that one of the same witnesses that said Al-Mustapha gave him the gun with which he killed Kudirat came back to court, crying like a baby and saying he was induced by the state to give the evidence. ‘Who is the state?’ He mentioned three levels, including the director-general of the State Security Service at the time. ‘What were you induced with?’ He said they promised that he would be given a house in Abuja; he would be posted outside the country; he would be paid salary in foreign currency, and his wife would be given money every month for sustenance. When the state failed in its part of the bargain, he decided to confess the true version of his involvement. Some of the witnesses, as a result of complying with the wishes of the state, were set free and they were walking the streets freely. They even went back to their jobs.

 

One of them was not even in Lagos in June, 1996. On June 4, when Kudirat was murdered, Katako was getting married in Azare, in Bauchi State. He got married at 10am; Kudirat was killed between 8 and 9am. And the judge of the lower court was told all that and she recorded everything said by those witnesses, and she based her judgment of hanging on those two witnesses. That was prosecution witness numbers two and three. When the judge of the lower court was going to give judgment, she knew that such a crime might earn death sentence, she itemised the evidences but said there were circumstantial evidences. Circumstantial evidences in murder case? What are these circumstantial evidences, she didn’t say. She wrote 326 pages of judgment. What was she looking for writing 326 pages of judgment? According to the Appeal Court, she was fishing for truth, falsehood and lies. The Appeal Court wrote about 32 pages destroying her judgment, with various authorities cited. At the end, the Appeal Court didn’t see what circumstances the lower court based its judgment, so it refused the judgment on hard facts and evidences from credible witnesses; not witnesses that gave evidences and came back to retract them.

Don’t you think those people would have been induced to retract their earlier testimony?   
That is ridiculous. Who will induce them? Al-Mustapha was in prison. Don’t forget that he was even accused of planning a coup in prison and some generals even said he was attempting to import stinger missiles into Nigeria. And when they called him to face the panel, he disgraced the entire panel by asking them questions. He asked them how much a stinger missile cost. None of them knew. He told them that the smallest type cost $250m (N40.3bn). Where will he get that in prison? And in that coup, I was supposed to have been his accomplice. The SSS invited me and queried me. I told them to put their questions in writing and I would respond in writing. They retreated.

 

Maj. Gen Hamza Al-Mustapha was discharged and acquitted on 12th July 2013 for allegedly killing the wife of  MKO Abiola, after spending 14 years in prison.

 

Source: Punch