ON GEN. ABACHA: LETTER TO MAJOR AL-MUSTAPHA
ON GEN. ABACHA: LETTER TO MAJOR AL-MUSTAPHA
By:
Nurudeen Dauda
February 8, 2020
nurudeendauda24@yahoo.com
nurudeendauda24@gmail.com
“If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading or do things worth the writing”- Benjamin Franklin.---“The time is always right to do what is right”-Martin Luther King JR.
My Dear General(rtd),
You are popularly known as Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, but I learned that you were promoted to the rank of Brigadier General after your discharge and acquittal from the alleged murder of the late Hajia Kudirat Abiola . I do hope you are in good health. Permit me to congratulate you for your acquittal after 15 years of incarceration. Sir, accept my best wishes.
My letter to you is in respect of your recent interview with VOA Hausa Service on late General Abacha which contained a lot of rebuttal and some revelations. Let me salute your unalloyed loyalty to your late boss even in death. You have not wavered even in death ! I read your prisons note where you stated the reasons that prevented you from taking over the mantle of leadership after the death of your boss.
Sir, no matter what anybody would say about your late boss, I knew he assumed the leadership of Nigeria at a time its unity was very fragile and he did his very best in holding the country together. May the Almighty Allah forgive our shortcomings as fallibles.
The purpose of my letter to you is to call on you to write a "book" on your accounts of late General Abacha's government . In my prediction , the "book" will trigger rejoinders from where the "truth" shall prevail. It should involve several other national issues including security. As an intelligent officer who worked at the "corridor" of power your knowledge would benefit the nation. Your experience would most likely add value especially at this critical time that our country faces serious insecurity challenges.
You were once reported to have said: “If you look at the history of Nigeria, from 1974 till date, and its secrete, there are many things that are being presented as the truth, when they are actually the contrary...”
Sir, I want you to document your accounts on the raid of Kalakuta Republic by the unknown soldiers, 1985 General Vatsa's alleged coup, the 1990 aborted coup, the death of Dele Giwa, the 1995 aborted coup, the 1997 aborted coup, the death of Gen. Shehu Musa Yar’adu, the death of Kudirat Abiola, the death of chief MKO Abiola , and the death of Gen. Abacha.
You once said : “we have been patient to keep quite in this country, despite the number of secrets we know... there have been many security secrets covered under different false disguises involving Obasanjo.” (Daily trust, December 26, 2013).
You also once challeged General Obasanjo to a public debate over allegations he made against you in his letter to President Gooluck Jonathan. Where you said, “…appealed to the former president to accept the challenge for a debate in any of the global arenas, like CNN or Al-jazeera…Nigerians would then come to discover who knows the secrets of Nigeria between you…when Obasanjo wrote his letter I was away in India to treat injuries I suffered while in detention during Abdulsalami Abubakar Obasanjo’s Administration...He knows that I know this country, and I challenge him on anything about Nigeria, because even before he became president, he knows I know this country. I pray that he accepts my proposal for the debate on anything about Nigeria in any part of the world.”(Leadership Newspaper May 31, 2016).
In your interview with Bode Gbadebo you once said : “… those who punish me and severally attempted to kill me and the God Almighty saved me and I am going to narrate how many times I knew I survived death before detention, at the point of detention, people sent to do accident with me with their weapons; accidental discharge, putting harmful things in the food they administered to me forcefully. God has preserved me and I am still here.”
Similarly, you added that : “…my brother was arrested nine times; they burnt his house, shot the guard in his house, all to scare me not to talk about Abiola matter and other skeletons in the cupboard of those who punish me which they know I know.”
You added, “...until the revelations at the Oputa panel came, Nigerians were not aware . I tell you today that; oputa panel is likened to an excises where water was to be taken out of a full drum and you came to Oputa only to take a spoonful out of it and the game players were complaining that we have taken the whole water out of the drum meaning we came to reveal everything about them. No! Have said nothing. We have not even introduced the problems they know I at Oputa Panel. We are just keeping facts, we are watching with humility, with respect, care for the country, thinking and showing concern about the unity of this country…” (Desert Herald, October, 2013).
I decide to make this letter open because of its importance to us as Nigerians. I do hope this letter will get to you through the power of both social and conventional media. May the Almighty God give you the strength to put your accounts in writing for posterity.
May God bless Nigeria!