Al-Mustapha was a scapegoat- Fani-Kayode

Fani-Kayode (r) Mustapha (m) Sam Nda Isaiah

A former minister of Aviation in Nigeria, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode has defended Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, former Chief Security Officer to late military ruler, Gen. Sani Abacha, who was acquitted and discharged July 12 by the Appeal Court in Lagos over the June 4, 1996 murder of heroine of democracy, Alhaja Kudirat Abiola.  He said Al-Mustapha was a scapegoat.

Below are the words of Fani-Kayode, who recently joined the yet to be registered All Progressive Congress (APC) from the

People Democratic Party (PDP):

“My view is that it is the same people that killed MKO Abiola, Abacha, Bola Ige, Dikibo, Harry Marshal, Funso Williams, Alfred Rewane and so many others that killed Kudirat. The conspiracy of the system is much deeper and more complex than the average Nigerian can possibly fathom. When the truth comes out people will be shocked. All I can say is that I am firmly of the view that Mustapha was just a scapegoat and that those that actually ordered the killing of Kudirat wanted to hang it on him just to silence him and keep him out of circulation. When this man tells the nation what he knows and what he went through at the hands of those who succeeded Abacha this country will be shaken to its very foundation.

15 years is a long time to lock someone up behind bars without ANY evidence against him . . . Guilt by association has no place in any civilised society. If it did every single government official that has held public office since 1960 would be in jail today. We must not lock people up simply out of sentiment or suspicion. There MUST be evidence of wrongdoing. I fought Abacha and Al Mustapha when most people commenting here could barely read or write and when some of them were still wearing diapers. I did so far more than most did and I had to leave my country for 5 long years and live in exile because of it. Yet I will not go down the road of vengeance or of persecuting and punishing my old adversaries without any firm and hard evidence. I assure you that those that ordered those killings have never spent one day in jail and going by the way Nigerians behave they probably never will because our people are not asking the right questions or demanding to hear the right answers. The killers of Kudi and others have been running the country and the system for many years and I assure you that the greatest threat to them today is probably Al Mustapha because he knows so much. That is why I am glad that he is out of prison. I pray that Kudirat’s real killers are eventually exposed and convicted just as I pray that the killers of ALL the other people that were assassinated at that time in our history, before then and after then are also exposed and prosecuted”.