15 Mar 2009 |
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| I wish to call the attention of the Federal Government and other authorities concerned to please come to the aid of such wrongly incarcerated people as Major Hamza Al-Mustapa & co by granting them bail to enable them breathe the air of freedom for the first time in eleven years.
We're fortunate to have this administration of Alhaji Umaru Yar'adua which boasts of strict adherence to the rule of law and following due process in the discharge of its responsibilities. It's therefore expected of this regime to imbibe relatively higher propensity to protect the rights of anyone subjected to an unconstitutionally extra-judicial treatment.
Some years back the judiciary granted bails to many suspects charged with treason and felony, a crime worse than the one for which Major Hamza Al-mustapha and co are suspected to have committed. The suspects who enjoyed this selective justice and lopsided judicial magnanimity included Alhaji Mujaheed Asari Dokubo and Ateke Tom, both of arms-wielding militant groups in the volatile Niger-Delta region, Mr. Ralph Uwazurike of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafara (MASSOB) and the duo of Ganiyu Adams and Dr. Frederick Fasheun both of the notorious Odua Peoples' Congress (OPC). But throughout this generous judicial bail fiesta, Major Hamza Al-mustapha who was the Chief Security Officer (CSO) to Late General Sani Abacha; former Chief of Army Staff, General Ishaya Bamaiya (now freed); former Zamfara State Administrator, Colonel Jibrin Bala Yakubu; a former Commissioner of Police, Mr. James Danbaba and former Superintendent of Police, Mohammed Rabo Lawal were all barred or rather consciously excluded from the list of the above-mentioned bail beneficiaries. One may tend to ask the nature of crimes these people committed to have suffered so much humiliation, a seemingly unending incarceration and a deliberate denial of bails all of which impringe on their civil rights as citizens of Nigeria. Are they charged with treason of unpadonable magnitude? Did they commit economic sabotage that crippled the Nigerian nation by reducing our huge economy to rubble? Or were these people caught clamouring for the disintegration of this country and so still considered as security threats to our national unity and survival?
Of course the answers to all these questions are capital NO even from the mouths of their prosecutors. They are charged with nothing more than a murder attempt on the life of Mr. Alex Ibru, publisher of The Guardian newspaper, a bailable offence committed more than twelve years now. All other charges were aptly quashed by the blatant remarks of Seargent Rogers who confessed that he was forced and or enticed to make damaging remarks and incriminating statements against Al-Mustapha and co by Obasanjo boys.
I am extremely amazed at the level of insensitivity of our northern elites and so-called traditional rulers. No matter what these talented officers did during their hey-days in their respective positions, they shouldn't be ignored languishing in jail for about eleven years without any fair trial, an indication of ingratitude of the highest order in respect to the services they rendered to their fatherland. Remember, they were uniformed officers whose any form of excessiveness and overzealousness could have been as a result of directives from their superiors. Afterall, to err is human while to forgive is divine. The inability to pardon or grant bail to these accused by all the successive administrations ranging from the initiator of their arrests to those that inherited their unjustifiable long detention could rightly be attributed to pure vendetta. The stance of Obasanjo in relation to their predicament is quite clear as he was jailed by their boss, Gen. Abacha, for an alledged involvement in a failed coup d'tat and was freed only after Abacha's demise. As such he could go to any extent in dealing harshly with both open and perceived loyalists of the late General. I, however, cannot find any clue to the logic behind keeping them imprisoned by the incumbent government of Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar'adua. We're fully aware of the fact that his blood brother, General Shehu Musa Yar'adua of blessed memory was imprisoned by the same Abacha junta and didn't come out of the prison alive. But President Yar'adua being a Muslim northerner shouldn't infuse into our minds tne impression that his government continues to detain them only due to this hereditary feud. He should highten his spirit of forgiveness as encouraged by Islam and I firmly believe that Mr. President wouldn't like to be associated with any sort of autocratic use of power to subvert the provisions of Nigerian constitution which forbids detaining a suspect without trial for more than forty eight hours and further stipulates granting bail to persons charged with an offence similar to that of Major Hamza Al-Mustapha and co. Please Mr. President, do intervene in this matter so as to enable the accused re-unite with their families like any other Nigerian.
Yakubu Muhammad Rigasa, Kaduna.
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