TWO respected but deceased Yoruba leaders, Chief Abraham Adesanya and Chief Bola Ige were among eminent Nigerians, who allegedly fraternised with former Head of State, Gen. Abubakar Abdulsalami to ensure the abandonment of Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola, the acclaimed winner of the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election.
This claim was among the several sensational revelations made by former Chief Security Officer (CSO) to the late Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha, Major Hamza Al-Mustapha before a Lagos High Court yesterday.
Al-Mustapha is facing trial over the murder of Alhaja Kudirat Abiola, wife of Abiola, the business mogul-turned politician by suspected agents of the Abacha junta.
He had told the court on Monday that several Yoruba leaders were bribed by Gen. Abdulsalami, the successor of Abacha, to jump Abiola claiming that he knew those who killed Abiola and Abacha.
His allegations attracted reactions from eminent Yoruba leaders, who asked the former Abacha’s aide to name their kinsmen allegedly induced by the military administration over the June 12 saga.
Surprisingly, Al-Mustapha yesterday restricted himself to listing Ige, the slain Minister of Justice in the first term administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Adesanya, who until his death, was the leader of Afenifere, a pan-Yoruba group as persons that frequented the presidency at that time and as likely beneficiaries.
Curiously, Adesanya had a running battle with the military junta and even survived an assassination attempt by agents of the government, who pumped several bullets into his car and took him dead during the attack in Lagos. But Ige was not that lucky as he was killed years later in his Ibadan home in Oyo State, after his security details abandoned him, allegedly to search for food.
Al-Mustapha told the court that Abdusalami directed the then Central Bank Governor (CBN) through a memo he co-signed with the former National Security Adviser, Maj-Gen. Mohammed Abdullahi to withdraw large sums of money in local and foreign currencies to settle some influential Nigerians who compromised on Abiola’s mandate.
The former CSO, who testified in his continued trial over the murder of Kudirat said the money withdrawn were $200 million, £75 million, and N500 million. According to him, some prominent Yoruba elders, who were angry over the June 12 annulment visited the Presidential Villa but after inducement from the released funds, “they went home and rejoicing.”
He said: “When we finished the initial handover, we agreed on a 16-point agenda and one of them was to release Abiola, actualse his mandate in addition to conducting a short transitional programme. But the late Chief Bola Ige was drafted into the Presidency and against our earlier agreement they refused to release him (Abiola). Those Very Important Persons (VIPs) came to the Presidency to negotiate for the case of Abiola instead of talking of his release. Those who were coming to the Villa delayed his release for a month in order for him to be murdered.
“Whether the late Ige was aware or not, I do not know. I wrote him an 11-page letter titled: ‘How you were unconsciously used in the murder of MKO Abiola.’ It was because I have known this background and became inquisitive that I was subsequently taken. Another VIP who led a delegation to visit the Villa was Pa Abraham Adesanya. I want the inventory of my bags to be returned. The Abdusalami Abubakar government seized everything I had except the clothes I was wearing.”
Al-Mustapha tendered a videotape, which contained the departure of the VIPs he alleged visited the Villa and urged the court to admit it as evidence. He stated that the tape was not seized by Abdulsalami’s government because he (Al-Mustapha) recorded the clip in a VHS with the inscription “cartoon” and was left carelessly for anyone to believe it had no incriminating evidence.
The Prosecution Counsel, Olabisi Odungbesan, asked the court to dismiss the video-tape for lack of proof of evidence that the witness did the recording.
She further argued that they prosecution were not served a copy of the content of the videotape Al-Mustapha wanted admitted as well as the fact that admitting it will violate the principles of fair hearing.
“We have an obligation to provide a proof of evidence. I am of the view that my learned friend owes us a duty to provide us a copy in the interest of fair hearing. There is nothing in this tape to indicate that the witness was there when the recording was made. I object the admissibility of the tape, my lord.”
But counsel to Al-Mustapha, Olalekan Ojo, argued that the video was admissible in law. “The witness qualifies as the maker of the recording pursuant of the fact that it was recorded on his directive by his bodyguard. This can also go in as a res document that the witness authored. In criminal cases, the rules relating to admissibility of matter are not the same with that of civil cases. In criminal cases, video recordings are taken provided they are contemporaneous evidence of the recordings on the tape,” he said
In her ruling, the trial judge, Justice Mojisola Dada, held that the need to admit the video recording is relevant in the case. “The case of fair hearing is also relevant in this matter. Therefore, the objection of the defence counsel to the admissibility of the video recording is hereby dismissed. The VHS is hereby admitted in evidence.”
On the issue of the money withdrawn, Al-Mustapha said the evidence of his claim is contained in a memo he obtained from a counter-espionage photocopier machine.
Praying the court to admit the copy from his client as evidence, Ojo said it qualifies as an automatic reproduction from the one that was fed into the machine. “This document is being tendered as a rare evidence, which means that it is a particular document that the witness got from the memory of the machine. I submit that the issue of the original being either produced or the certified true copy of the document is absolutely untenable because it is a document obtained by the defendant from his own intelligence manoeuvering.
“The case of the defendant was that there was treasury looting under the guise of certain things. In criminal law, what is important is relevance – is this document relevant in oral testimony? If it is relevant, I submit that it should be acceptable and admissible. In this case the witness was never in possession of the original document. I urge the honourable court to over-rule that objection and admit the document,” he stated. The judge obliged Ojo’s request.
Al-Mustapha further told the court that his personal belongings confiscated by the Gen. Abdulsalami’s government contained vital information that would help his testimony and prayed the court to order the military to release them.
He claimed that Gen. Abdulsalami ordered him on assumption of office to hand over four bullion vans to the new CSO. The vans, according to him, were used to protect the Villa and ferrying cash from the CBN to the Presidency.
“Part of the money withdrawn over time was given to those VIPs and some moved to Minna, Niger State to drop the hard currencies for the construction of farms and buildings for Gen. Abdulsalami. Because I know all these, that is how the persecution started. Yakassai was invited and convicted. He was in Owerri at the time Gen. Abubakar Abdulsalami came to power. Our media innocently were made to believe that the information they were given was real,” he said.
The former CSO claimed that a lot of people were induced either with cash, tortured or favoured to indict and incriminate him.
According to him, those who were induced to testify against him were a former bodyguard in Aso Rock, Sani Garba, a member of the strike force, Kyari Gadzama, and former Chief of Defence Staff, Aminu Mohammed.
Al-Mustapha continued: “Garba was told that I hated him, that I was to shoot him anywhere I see him. He was tortured and he confirmed it before Justice Olokoba. But he was released when they failed to induce him to implicate us. Aminu was also induced with money, cars, and houses to testify against us. They put us in the same aircraft with Aminu from the Force Headquarters in Abuja to Lagos.
“From the airport, we were put in a Black Maria and it was then that Aminu told us those who induced him, what he was to say and what was promised him. Gadzama was approached when our prosecution started and tortured together with Sergeant Rogers and told what to say against us. Aminu was reading law at the elementary level but he believes that he knows the law and would not be used to testify against us through torture and inducement,” he claimed.
Al-Mustapha added that Rogers and one Katako were however cowed to do the government’s bidding. “They were told that I was their worst enemy, that I was to shoot them. Eventually, Rogers submitted. Katako also followed. The agreement is that anything that Rogers said, he should follow. There are other things that affect security, which I cannot say now. Lagos State is prosecuting me because there are enough hidden things that they do not know. It is a very grievous mistake to think that once you put a man who has been in charge of intelligence in detention, you have cut him off,” he said, adding that “Rogers was given a house in Ilorin and Katako got his in Jos.”
Hearing in the case continues today.
In a statement yesterday, Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG) warned that nothing should be done to hurt Al-Mustapha.
The group praised Al-Mustapha over the courage he had demonstrated in telling Nigerians how Abiola was murdered. “This is by no means a great feat and we therefore encourage him not to waiver until this Wikileaks run its full course.”
It decried the government’s continued inability to bring to book killers of notable Nigerians such as Ige, Funsho Williams, and Alfred Rewane many years after their assassination.
In the statement signed by Kunle Famoriyo, its Media and Publicity Secretary, ARG said: “We are nonetheless consoled that, in the spirit of the season and national reconciliation, Al-Mustapha’s allegations will not be swept under the carpet.”
The group urged President Goodluck Jonathan to fortify security around Al-Mustapha. “No killer ‘tea’ and no strange envoy! No Mohammed Yussuf of the Boko Haram saga and no accidental discharge from ‘engagement in gun battle with the security forces!’ Rather, the President should as a matter of national importance authorise relevant security agencies to thoroughly investigate these allegations, sieve the wheat from the chaff and make the culprits to face the full wrath of the law.”
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