Al-Mustapha, Abacha's aide to die by hanging.

The Chief Security Officer, CSO, to late Head of State, General Sani Abacha, Major Hamzat Al-Mustapha and a protocol officer in the MKO Abiola campaign organisation, Alhaji Lateef Shofolahan have been sentenced to death for the murder of Alhaja Kudirat Abiola.

Kudirat was a wife of late MKO Abiola, a presidential candidate who was widely believed to have won the  1993 poll that the then military President, General Ibrahim Babangida (retd) annulled.

Abiola, the wealthy businessman was  jailed in 1994 after he challenged the military’s decision to annul the vote. He died in jail a month after Abacha’s death in circumstances yet to be clarified.

Al-Mustapha’s lawyer said he would appeal the verdict of the court.

"The judgment was a great surprise, since the prosecution confirmed that one of the witnesses was not reliable ... The judgment is regarded as a travesty of justice," his lawyer, Olalekan Ojo, said outside court.
Mustapha walked out of the court in Lagos smiling and was hugged by supporters waiting outside.

Abacha died age 54 in the company of two Indian prostitutes in 1998. The official cause of death was cardiac arrest.

Kudirat Abiola

It took 12 years for the nation‘s judiciary to finally determine that Major  Hamza Mustapha, the Chief Security Officer (CSO) to the former military head of state, General Sanni Abacha, was the person that masterminded the 1996 assassination of Alhaja Kudirat Abiola

During the campaigns for the June 12, 1993 presidential election, Alhaja Kudi Abiola traversed the nooks and crannies of the country with her husband and was in the fore front of the campaign  in the North because of her flawless understandingand knowledge of the Hausa language.

The assassination of Kudirat Abiola in1994 was received with outrage and condemnation and was described as  cruel and cowardly.

After the annulment of June 12, 1993 Presidential election by the General Ibrahim Babangida military administration, Bashorun Abiola commenced a political campaign across the world to drum up support for his mandate. But before this could be achieved, Babangida stepped aside and handed the government of the country to an Interim National Government (ING) led by Chief Ernest Sonekan.

The interim government of Sonekan was barely three months in office before it was overthrown by General Sanni Abacha who installed himself in office as the military head of state.

Basorun Abiola came back to the country to continue with his campaign against the Abacha regime and to reclaim his mandate but was arrested and put in detention shortly after he declared himself as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Following the detention of  Basorun Abiola, his wife Kudirat stepped out and became the symbol of democracy and championed the call for the release of her husband and for the revalidation of the June 12, 1993 mandate given her husband at the polls by Nigerians and consequently became a thorn in the flesh of the military junta.

Kudi  spoke fearlessly against the government of Gen. Sanni Abacha, even after  key political associates and the running mate to her husband in the annulled presidential election, Ambassador Baba Gana Kingibe, had taken up appointments in the military government.

She was going to keep an appointment at the Canadian High Commission in Victoria Island when her car was doubled-crossed somewhere around 7Up on the Lagos/Ibadan Expressway by al-Mustapha‘s hit men led by Sergeant  Barnabas Mshelia and was felled in a blaze of gun fire.