Al-Mustapha’s death sentence was miscarriage of justice- Fasehun

 DR. FREDRICK FASEHUN IS THE FOUNDER OF ODUA PEOPLES’ CONGRESS (OPC) IN NIGERIA. IN AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH NIGERIA POLITICS ONLINE, HE OPPOSES THE DEATH SENTENCE HANDED DOWN BY JUSTICE MOJISOLA DADA AGAINST MAJOR HAMZA AL-MUSTAPHA, THE FORMER CHIEF SECURITY OFFICER TO MAXIMUM DICTATOR, SANNI ABACHA AND LATEEF SHOFOLAHAN AND AIDE TO LATE KUDIRAT ABIOLA; FUEL SUBSIDY REMOVAL BY PRESIDENT JONATHAN; INSECURITY AND INCESSANT ATTACKS BY THE ISLAMIST MILITANT SECT, BOKO HARAM AMONG OTHER ISSUES. HE SPOKE WITH OPEYEMI ADESINA

What grouse do you have with the death sentence on Al-Mustapha and Shofolahan?

I don't think Nigeria subscribes to capital punishment now and this is happening all over the world. The right to life is the right of everyone. Al-Mustapha has been incarcerated for about 14 years. Is Nigerian Judiciary explaining to the world that they kept somebody awaiting trial for 14 years? And after trying him, they sentenced him to death? So, I don't think it is fair; it is not fair. I'm sure the sentence will be re-visited in the Appeal Court and that is my own hope and also my own prayer.

Regardless of crimes committed, a very popular political philosopher once said, “An eye for an eye will leave the world blind.” So, If you take life for life, what happens to life generally? I'm one of those who suffered from the position of Al-Mustapha but as a Christian, I have forgiven him. Should I indulge him for this number of years, should I begrudge Sani Abacha for this number of years?

Al-Mustapha was given a duty to do; to procure security of the Head of State. If he was not given a prescription, that ‘don't go beyond this, don't do this and don't do that.’ If he did that work, the way he knew best, do you think it is right to sentence him to death?

About the death of Kudirat Abiola, Al Mustapha did not shoot Alhaja Kudirat Abiola; somebody said he was sent to carry out that shooting, where is that somebody? What sentence have we given to the man who held the gun and the man who said he held the gun has since come to court? He broke his silence in the open court and said he was induced to tell that lie. Are we going to be the devil's advocate? That prosecution witness was concurred. He confessed that he did it, but he had to tell a lie against Al-Mustapha because the state induced him to tell that lie. I understand in Criminal Cases, when there is an element of doubt, you resolve the matter in favour of the suspect. So these are some of the reasons I thought that judgement was too harsh, very unfair and I will call it “The miscarriage of justice.”

Another prosecution witness, who said he drove the gunmen to the site of the murder, said, while that murder was going on there, on the 4th of June, he was getting married in Kazaure in Bauchi State. He got married at 11'o clock, they said Kudirat was shot around 10'0 clock and the man who was involved in the shooting was getting married in Kazaure, Bauchi State, an hour later, how possible is that even if he had his personal jet that will lift him from the sight of the murder.

Well, pure judgement is not found on earth, pure judgement rests with God. Alhaja Kudirat Abiola, somebody we all admired for her courage, for her steadfastness, died many years ago. What we should be doing is celebrating her memory, not sentencing another person to death on her behalf.

But as a Yoruba leader, don't you think your position runs against the position of majority of Yoruba people who believe that real justice has be done to the memory of one of their own who was killed in such a brutal manner?

I'm not apportioning or allotting blame, I'm saying that we should view the situation with humanity. There is no way somebody as prominent among the Yoruba people as Alhaja Kudira was, would die under nasty circumstances and would not divide Yoruba people. Someone who admire her like me, would say, no, let's go all out to right the wrong but some would be there to say don't let us cause national crisis, that's my own position, that, time usually a healer has healed that wound and but the memory remained with us because she is our daughter, she is a Yoruba citizen and she played the part Yoruba people wanted her to play, she played that part well. Whether she died as a heroine like she did or as a villain, time will heal that wound and that is why I said, at my age I have no reason to start flexing muscles and causing crises among my people but I'm saying, let us view the whole thing with humanity, that was why I started with Mahatma Gandhi's quotation that says: “An eye for an eye will leave the world blind.” So, I'm not taking a position opposite to my people but I am assuaging my people that the characteristics, the cultural Yoruba of fairness and sense of justice should be called into play.

You were reported to have travelled to the North several times over Al-Mustapha's case trying to rally support for him, what really did you achieve in that regards?

That is a lie, I never travelled to the North to rally support for him. What for? With what intent? The matter was in court, if I started rallying support for him when he was still in detention and nobody knew the way the wind will blow, it is not true, I didn't go to Kano on behalf of Al-Mustapha.

Some people felt you were betraying the Yoruba cause with your hobnobbing with the Northern elements to get personal advantages. How do you react to that?

Personal advantages at Seventy-seven (77)? When would I use those personal advantages, and have I taken any advantage of any situation all my life? Go and find out if I had taken advantages of any situation, I would have become a millionaire. The former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole left here just 10 minutes before you came in, to thank me on the position I took on his matter. You can ask him if he gave me a kobo.

I'm a crusader for social justice, I do not earn a kobo for my crusade and you can find out from any of the governors whom virtually all of them are my friends, find out from them if any of them buys me coke. Go and find out, it’s not my way of life. I allow you to go and investigate.

Somebody came to visit me from the East and he came to my office, he said 'is this your office?' I said Yes! This is my office, he said you are joking, then I said is there no table and seat? How do you expect me to live in a sumptuous place, that is, which I cannot afford. I don't take money from anybody, go and find out from your colleagues. What do I need it for? I'm going to be Seventy-seven (77) in September, how are my even sure that I will even clock 77, except by the grace of God.

Is the entire Odua People's Congress (OPC) in agreement on this opposition to the judgement or this is your personal position?

OPC never sat anywhere to discuss about Al-Mustapha, so it is my personal position but the organisation has also not sat me down to castigate me for my position, so you can work out the question.

Is Gani Adams in agreement with your position?

I don't know, it's up to him, if he shares the sentiment with me to fight for social justice, then he will agree with me but I don't know his position.

What is your view about the removal of fuel subsidy removal by the President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan?

My position which I made very clear is that removal of fuel subsidy is ill-timed. It came just as people were preparing to expenditure spree that happened at Xmas and New Year, preparing to pay school fees and some preparing to pay house rent and now government stepped in and slammed oil tax on the people. I thought it is unfair, undemocratic, that was inflicting pain on the general citizenry. And as it is, the cost of virtually everything has gone up, who suffers more? Is it those in government or the common man? The masses will suffer!

Every government in any civilised community exists for the comfort and convenience of the people governed, not the other way. Although, in our country, those who are being governed exist for the convenience for the comfort and convenience of those in government, that is not democratic. So, if the vast majority of the citizenry said don't inflict petrol tax on us, the government should have listened and avoided such infliction of pains because my own definition of democracy is; 'the wish of the majority of people', if we said no, don't inflict pain on us and the government goes ahead to inflict that pain, that government is not democratic. Not only that, I will want a situation where the sincerity of the government is assured. If you told us that you will inflict oil tax by March or April and the people are anxiously waiting, and you now came like a dove from the blue and you inflicted that pain three months earlier without warning, without preparation, is that fair to the people? No!

Not only that, subsequent government had removed subsidy, they have inflicted fuel tax which they called subsidy and such removal had happened in at least 20 times in our recent political history, where is the cumulative fund? On what are we spending such funds? Not promising us that if we removed this, we will use it on infrastructures, on health, on education, on this and that, what about the previous ones? On what have you spent it?

When SAP was introduced, Babaginda made sure that that matter was discussed exhaustively. We discussed it in schools, colleges, students' organisation, factories, non-governmental organisations, and so on and so forth. And the people said they did not want SAP and IBB reconsidered his decision. This oil tax is more directly inflicting pains on the people. Why didn't government subject it to national discourse? It would have been better if the government has subjected it to national discourse and majority have said let us comply, that is democracy. So, a seemingly democratic government came in and started ruling like a dictatorship.

What can you proffer as lasting solution concerning the insecurity in the country?

 Well, insecurity is the bane of Nigeria's social life. It is so permissive that nobody thinks safe everywhere, at home, in the office, in school, in church, in the mosque, on the road, anywhere, no Nigerian feel safe. Maybe Nigeria has been so careless to allow insecurity to grow from being a mini-school to now a monster. What government should do is to ensure that there is social justice, when injustice is permissive, the necessary consequence is insecurity. The Nigerian young person who goes to school from nursery school, primary school, University or College of Education and Polytechnic and comes out unemployed, hungry for years, obviously becomes angry. A hungry man is an angry man. He has prepared himself to a point when he's now waiting for the country to acknowledge to his anticipated contribution and the country is failing him. So, what does he do? He joins bad gang, he wants to feed and when he doesn't find it easy to feed, he takes up arms against his country and the country becomes insecure. Now, graduate unemployment pushes you to do two things, you either become an undesirable element in the community or if you are a girl, you end up in prostitution, either of which is undesirable. What steps have we taken to ensure that this social injustice is not promoted?

Government also has committed a lot of atrocities in the past against the citizenry. Take the South-South for instance, you have oil under their soil in the South-South and you come in as the Federal Government and you started exploring for oil. In the process of exploring, you have destroyed the fiona, the environment and the treasures you got from underground, you moved elsewhere and the goose that laid the golden egg is unfed. The people of the South-South didn't kick until they saw Abuja, Lagos, Kano, Enugu and say for God sake, see what our money has paid for. In the meantime, the environment has been destroyed, the water polluted, the air polluted, their health going down, hunger pervasive and their environment nothing to talk about. Their health destroyed, children running about with different forms of rashes. On top of it, they remained uneducated, they remained unemployed, they remained hungry and therefore angry. They spoke to the government, Ken Saro Wiwa was for years speaking to the government about the picture I have painted and the government would not listen. Ken Saro Wiwa was a pacifist and unfortunately he was speaking to a deaf government and when you speak to the deaf, he doesn't understand what you are saying, that's why people in the Niger-Delta flexed muscles. When you are talking to the deaf and he doesn't understand what you are saying, you show, you gesticulate to convince him that you are speaking, and that's what happened in the South-South. You talked about Boko Haram, thousands and thousands and thousands of children who have no opportunity to go school and see criminal wealth being flaunted in their presence, so Boko Haram is not a religious affair, it is a class war. That's what many of us don't understand and when two people are simultaneously aggrieved and they clashed, the result is usually a flash. And government should not allow that to situation to develop, they should find Nigerians, trusted by both sides- Government and Boko Haram to mediate the crisis. Even when two countries sit down to declare a war, after fighting the war, they still come to table to discuss peace, so why must you go to war before you discuss peace? That's what government should do and some of us have been agitating for a sovereign national conference for years, saying let us re-order this nation, let us restructure and redesign this nation so that unity may be forged and Nigeria will move forward like a powerful nation and the people have been saying 'No'. So that's why the ethnic nationality of whatever ill are aggrieved and this is the time now for us to sit down, table our problems and proffer solutions and I hope the government will accede to that. But in the meantime, let the government look for honest, decent, uncommitted Nigerians to mediate the situation.