Weep not for al-Mustapha - Ex-Abiola's aide tells Nigerians

Former personal assistant to Chief M.K.O. Abiola, Olu Akerele, has advised Nigerians not to weep for Major Hamza al-Mustapha, former security chief to the late head of state General Sani Abacha, because 'he was merely granted what he deserved in the nation's quest of serving criminal justice.'Reacting to al-Mustapha's sentence to death by a Lagos High Court, Akerele, in a press statement in Abuja on Tuesday, said 'al-Mustapha is the devil-incarnate, not worthy to live among human beings.'He said those who had sympathy for al-Mustapha "do not know one bit about the former security chief, who took advantage of his post to visit years of terror and wickedness on his fellow countrymen.'Recalling his own personal experience in the hands of al-Mustapha, Akerele, who spent 18 months in Abacha's gulag said, 'this man was not satisfied with incacerating Abiola. He ordered my arrest, that of my younger brother then in the University of Abuja, who was abducted and locked up for 10 months, that of my colleague and friend then at Concord newspapers, Mallam Adamu Mohammed, for eight months and my three drivers who got thrown into the gulag for three months each.'Akerele, who was appointed by the judge handling the Abiola case in 1994 to liaise between Abiola, members of his family, doctors, lawyers among others, with the court and security agencies, noted that these persons suffered such humiliation not for any breach of security, but simply because al-Mustapha aimed at breaking Abiola down completely.He said when the former chief security detail to Abacha could not break Abiola's resolve to reclaim his June 12 mandate, he ordered the summary execution of his wife, Kudirat, to show how powerful he was.
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